A new programme to catalyse development in the city was launched by the city council yesterday. The programme is outlined in a report to be considered by councillors on the Economy Committee next week. Continue reading Council extends development programme
Volunteer groups and individuals in and around Edinburgh, who contribute to Scotland’s historic environment, are being asked to step forward and make themselves known, as entries for the Scottish Heritage Angel Awards 2016 opened on Friday (10th June). Continue reading Awards seek out Edinburgh’s ‘Heritage Angels’
HIBS VICTORY PARADE DETAILS
Sunshine on Leith today!
Edinburgh’s Lord Provost has congratulated Hibernian Football Club on their historic Scottish Cup win and given the go-ahead on plans for a public celebration (last night’s celebrations were unofficial!) Continue reading Glory, glory to the Hibees!
Edinburgh’s Lord Provost is on his marks and getting set to tackle 26.2 miles tomorrow when he takes on the Virgin Money London Marathon 2016. Continue reading Provost gets set to tackle London Marathon
Edinburgh schools closures: now it’s the blame game
News of the extended closure of 17 Edinburgh buildings built under the controversial Public Private Partnership arrangements has reopened the debate on using private finance schemes to fund public projects. And, with an election looming, the PPP issue is a heaven-sent for political parties: an unmissable opportunity to play the blame game, finger-pointing and point scoring.
The strictly non-partisan Cockburn Association, Edinburgh’s civic trust, has previously expressed disquiet over the quality and design of PPP schools. The Cockburn Association wrote to councillors regarding school provision and building quality back in January 2012:
“… we would encourage the Planning Department to work with their colleagues in Education to realize a better outcome both for the quality of teaching space and design of the buildings following a proper appraisal of the capacity for the physical expansion of existing primary schools.
“Perhaps a new primary school built in the north of Edinburgh on the proposed budget of £2200 per sq m would be a far more wise option? The City has a fine history of school building by the Edinburgh School Board from 1870 and their quality is a standard we should return to in the 21st century.”
Teachers’ trade union the EIS is calling for an urgent review of all PPP/PFI deals in light of the schools closures.
General Secretary Larry Flanagan said: “The EIS welcomes that the safety of pupils and staff is being treated as a priority, while recognising that these short-notice closures will be highly inconvenient for pupils and parents.
“However, we must also question how such significant defaults could escape normal building control scrutiny and we believe it is now necessary for an urgent review of all PPP/PFI contracts, including the terms of the private maintenance contracts which are often both expensive and extremely restrictive.”
With the 5 May Holyrood elections just around the corner, opponents of both Conservatives (who introduced PPP) and Labour (who adopted it) have wasted little time in apportioning blame for the ‘fiasco’. Who would have thought that the PPP debate would raise it’s head again and become an election battleground?
Over the weekend both the Greens and RISE damned their political opponents and today it’s the turn of the SNP to fire a broadside – and the Lib Dems are in their sights, too.
The SNP candidate in Edinburgh Western Tony Giugliano said: ” “This is a critical time for many pupils, as they enter exam period, and everything must be done to minimise disruption and find alternative safe studying environments. I would also encourage Edinburgh Council to do more to support parents with childcare arrangements.
“It’s clear that we need an immediate inquiry into the construction and safety of these schools. We know that the previous Lib Dem – Labour government at Holyrood bullied councils into rolling out PFI – and the result is exactly what we all feared: unsafe, substandard schools.
“PFI has been a disaster for the city of Edinburgh, with taxpayers contributing £40 million each year in repayments for buildings that are crumbling after only 10 years. Not to mention the debt legacy that the construction of PFI hospitals has had on the NHS. It’s utterly unacceptable and parents and pupils deserve better.
“Edinburgh taxpayers can no longer afford to keep paying for substandard buildings and the City Council should re-consider the future of these contracts.”
Meanwhile, efforts by council officials to resolve the problems go on. City council chief exective Andrew Kerr assured anxious parents: ““Officers are continuing to work on contingency arrangements and we will provide regular updates to parents and carers as and when further information becomes available.”
Parents, however, are growing increasingly angry. Thousands of familes are affected by the school closures and they want answers – now.
We’ll keep you posted.
GRANTS from £5,000 – £10,000 AVAILABLE
The OneCity Trust’s main grant programme is now open for applications. Registered charities and constituted groups based in Edinburgh and focussing their work in the city with an annual income of less than £200,000 are invited to apply for funding for social inclusion projects meeting one or more of the priorities of:
· COMMUNITY CONNECTEDNESS
· CULTURAL BRIDGING
· CIVIC INCLUSION
New this year is a partnership with Travis Perkins Managed Services and the City of Edinburgh Council. A Community Benefit fund offered to the Council by Travis Perkins as part of a major contract will be allocated through the OneCity Trust.
Applications for this funding will be considered from organisations that involve City of Edinburgh Council tenants, or from other organisations aiming to benefit geographical areas with a high proportion of Council homes. The themes will be the same: community connectedness, cultural bridging and civic inclusion.
Overall, the Trust intends to make up to 8 grants, each at the level of £5,000 to £10,000.
For further information and to request an application form, please see www.onecity.org.uk
If you’d prefer to speak to someone, please telephone Susan Shippey on 0131 469 3874 or email 1617applications@onecity.org.uk Please note that the Trust is supported by the council on a part-time basis.
The deadline for applications is 29 April 2016, and projects should commence on 1 July 2016 and run for up to one year.
Sainsbury’s Sport Relief Mile: Edinburgh, Sunday 20 March Continue reading Get involved in Sport Relief
On the eve of Edinburgh’s crucial budget meeting, JIMMY BURNETT argues that the SNP government must end the Council Tax freeze – NOW
Local Government is in crisis. And it is a crisis for which councils bear little or no responsibility.
The Scottish Government has made successive cuts in support for local government, culminating in this year’s savage £550 million reduction. This coupled with the continuing imposition of the SNP-enforced nine year long council tax freeze, has forced local councils, like Edinburgh, into implementing cuts on a scale, never before envisaged.
And to make matters worse, the council tax freeze has seen the better off benefit by three times as much as people at the bottom of the scale – and of course the poorest section of society, who receive full or partial council tax relief, save not one penny.
In addition, as pointed out by Unison, councils, in dire need of alternative resources, have partially plugged the gap, by increasing service charges. Charges which of course, hit the lower paid harder, as the recent “ Close the Gap” report highlighted.
Since 2007, 40,000 jobs have gone in local authorities across Scotland.
Vulnerable and older peoples service have been particularly hit. 13,000 fewer people receive a Home Care Service than was the case a mere six years ago. Service charges for vulnerable people have risen by 11.5 million since 2010.
Here in Edinburgh, the Council is being forced to inflict almost £90 million cuts on crucial services. Yet they cannot even consider raising their council tax , without immediately receiving further cuts in resources from the Scottish Government.
Lets have a quick look at the figures. A council tax rise of 3% in Edinburgh would raise 7 million, a relatively small sum, but still enough to make some contribution to saving crucial services. This would cost Band A households 45p per week, Band D householders 67p per week and Band H householders – those in the highest valued houses – £1.35 per week.
Surely not too much to ask, when people are dying in Edinburgh while waiting for care packages to be provided?
But there is a catch. A 3% rise would in reality, unless the Scottish Government chose to lift their penalty system, would raise precisely nothing for services: the Scottish Government would immediately claw back £7 million from the council. So much for local democracy and accountability!
Since 2,007, the Scottish Government, have chosen to earmark a staggering £2.5 billion to finance the council tax freeze. This is public money. Money being spent on services , but only if councils agree to freeze their council tax. As a result councils across Scotland have been denied their democratic right to raise taxes locally and be accountable to the electorate for that rise.
So the council tax freeze is unfair. The better off have had savings three times the level of the less well off.
The council tax freeze has deprived councils of their democratic right to raise much needed resources for local services.
The Scottish Government-imposed council tax freeze is anti democratic, as it removes local accountability.
Even at this late stage, the Scottish Government, AT NO COST TO THEM WHATSOEVER, could choose to end this unfair freeze. And they could, and should, allow councils to raise their tax with no penalty clawback.
But they are unlikely to do so. And have said as much. This is an election year, and therefore, it appears, that because they believe the freeze to be popular, they are prepared to see services sacrificed, jobs lost and people suffer.
And the irony is that they appear to be able to do so, with virtually no criticism, whilst it is councils, who they are forcing to make cuts, who are bearing the brunt of the ire of the general public!
Jimmy Burnett was Housing and Finance Chair of Edinburgh District Council
Elton John announces Edinburgh Meadowbank date
Following on from the announcement of six huge summer dates next year, Elton John has now added another massive British show to his ‘Wonderful Crazy Night’ Tour, performing in Edinburgh on Saturday 25 June.
Having already announced shows in Exeter, Henley, Leicester, Lincoln, Liverpool and Oxford, Elton will bring his band to Meadowbank Stadium for the first live music concert the venue has held since 2007. Continue reading Saturday night’s alright for Elton!
It’s ‘Literary’ a hat trick for city authors!
A trio of Edinburgh writers have each won a prestigious award as part of the 2015 Saltire Literary Awards.
Edinburgh City Libraries’ Poet in Residence Ryan Van Winkle has won the Saltire Scottish Poetry Book of the Year Award supported by the Scottish Poetry Library for his latest collection The Good Dark.
Edinburgh-based writer Helen McClory has won the 2015 Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award for On the Edges of Vision, a collection of dark short stories and prose poetry about the limits of the conscious and the darkness within.
And the Saltire Society Scottish Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award has gone to Adventures in Human Being, a book that takes the reader through surgery, blood, dissection and much besides that keeps the human being ticking over, written by Edinburgh physician Gavin Francis, whose book Empire Antarctica was previously shortlisted for the 2013 Saltire Literary Awards.
Now firmly established as Scotland’s most prestigious annual book awards, the Saltire Society Literary Awards celebrate and support literary and academic excellence across seven distinct categories with the winner of each of six individual book categories going forward to be considered for the Saltire Book of the Year award.
The winner of this year’s headline award was “The Book of Strange New Things”, the latest work from Dutch-born, Scotland-based writer Michel Faber. The Saltire Book of the Year Award is supported by the National Lottery through Creative Scotland.
Faber is a past winner of the Saltire First Book of the Year award for his 2000 debut novel Under the Skin, which was later adapted into a 2013 feature film directed by Jonathan Glazer and starring Scarlett Johansson. His 2002 novel The Crimson Petal and the White was dramatised as a four part BBC television series starring Romola Garai and Richard E. Grant in 2011.
Set in a not-so-distant future where a global corporation has successfully colonised a planet in a neighbouring galaxy, Faber’s latest book is a genre-defying novel that tells the story of Peter, a Christian pastor sent to carry out missionary work amongst the aliens native to the planet. As the story progresses, Peter becomes increasingly uneasy about his situation and the mysterious disappearance of his predecessor and finds it more and more difficult to relate his experiences to his wife back home on Earth.
“The Book of Strange New Things” is a powerful examination of humanity and how a failure to communicate can gradually erode marital intimacy. Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell has called it “Michel Faber’s second masterpiece”. Others have variously described it as “gripping”, “heartbreaking”, and “desperately beautiful, sad and unforgettable”.
Commenting on winning the Saltire Scottish Poetry Book of the Year award, Ryan van Winkle (above) said: “Having chosen Scotland as my adopted home, this is a very special honour for me. I did not expect this at all and am proud that the Saltire Society found ‘The Good Dark’ worthy. I am flattered and grateful for this distinction.”
Winner of the Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award Helen McClory (above) said: “I am utterly delighted that On the Edges of Vision has won this year’s Saltire First Book of the Year Award. That On the Edges of Vision was published at all seems to me a minor miracle — a case of the right editor at the right moment. Erin McKnight, the Scotland-born American founder of Queen’s Ferry Press, took this collection of flashes, dusted and sharpened them where they needed to be, and ushered them into the world. For the collection to then win this prize is a huge boost not just to myself but the press as well, highlighting QFP’s innovative mission. Sparklers in both hands, quite honestly.”
Andrew Franklin, Managing Director at Profile Books, who published Gavin Francis’ (below) Saltire Society Scottish Non-Fiction Book of the Year Adventures in Human Being, said: “From the bottom of our hearts, lungs, livers, brains, feet and all the other body parts that Gavin writes so brilliantly about, we’re absolutely delighted that the Saltire Prize have chosen Gavin’s wonderfulAdventures in Human Being as the winner of the 2015 prize. Welcome Collection and Profile have always been Gavin’s biggest fans, and it’s fantastic to see his work recognised by such a prestigious prize.”
Executive Director of the Saltire Society Jim Tough said: “Given the sheer breadth and variety of writing talent on display, this has been a vintage year for the Saltire Literary Awards. I think our decision to split the Literary Book Award into two separate categories for fiction and non-fiction has been vindicated. These and indeed every one of the individual book awards were hotly contested, making the judges’ decision a particularly challenging one.
“The same was also true of this year’s Publisher of the Year Award. My congratulations to all of the winners and my heartfelt thanks to the judging panel and to all of our partners and supporters who helped to make the 2015 Saltire Literary Awards such a resounding success.”
Janet Archer, CEO, Creative Scotland said: “The list of winners takes readers on a journey from the diaspora of Scotland to the horrors of the First World War and out to the ends of the universe. The strength of this year’s shortlist is testament to the quality and scope of Scotland’s rich literary scene. These awards are important as they celebrate and recognise literary excellence in Scotland and highlight established and emerging authors to readers across the country. Huge congratulations to each of the category winners.”
