Community award for Malcolm Chisholm

Edinburgh North and Leith MSP Malcolm Chisholm was awarded Pilton Central Association’s Rose Bowl at the community organisation’s annual general meeting this evening. The Rose Bowl is awarded annually to people who have made a major contribution to community life in North Edinburgh, and Malcolm Chisholm is the first politician to receive the award since it’s introduction in 1990.

PCA chairperson Betty McVay said: “The Rose Bowl was donated to the PCA by one of my predecessors, Agnes Laidlaw, who was a tremendous example to community activists. The Rose Bowl is presented to individuals who we feel have made a contribution to making this community a better place to live. Malcolm certainly falls into that category, and has done for a number of years. I know Malcolm has to declare all gifts and presents, so I should point out that this rose bowl is only his to keep for a year – we’ll be wanting it back!”

Malcolm, who has represented North and Leith at both Westminster and then Holyrood since 1992, was genuinely surprised to receive the award. “This is a huge shock, but I’m very honoured and feel very humble to have been considered for a community award like this, particularly here in North Edinburgh. Truly, I’m overwhelmed.”

The Rose Bowl presentation was the highlight of a very successful night for the PCA in West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre. The meeting was very well attended and the PCA managed to attract a full complement of sixteen committee members, including a number of new faces … and, would you believe it, a young person!

There were two guest speakers at the meeting. North Edinburgh Social History Group’s Roberta Blaikie gave an entertaining history of the succesful community project which has been running for almost four years – and shows no sign of stopping yet! PCA’s financial support enabled the Social History Group to publish their acclaimed ‘Never Give Up’ book.

Jimmy Butler has been a friend of the PCA since ‘being dragged into Ferry Road Drive in 1974 and painting the back shop!’ Most recently Jimmy has been working on a business plan for the PCA and he gave a brief introduction to the draft Community Enterprise Operational Plan. The plan will be discussed in detail at forthcoming committee meetings, but Jimmy said the plan will help PCA to ‘move forward and remain relevant’. He added: “The PCA has been here, well, forever and let’s hope we can make sure it will be here forever!”

Happy birthday Stockbridge Market!

Stockbridge Market’s Beth Berry extends an invitation to a birthday party …

Stockbridge Market celebrates its first birthday on Sunday 9 September. Opening day last year saw 17 traders set their stalls and hope the public would arrive – now Sundays are regularly packed with happy shoppers and we average 40 traders covering everything from the basics – meat, fish, bread, veg, cheese – to the exotic – olives, jams, chutneys, cured meats, French wines, cupcakes, sweets and lots of homebakes. Most traders are producers and you can discuss your purchase and get advice on how best to enjoy it. Most traders also offer tasters so you can go home secure that you will like what you’ve bought – a very different experience than the supermarket!!

Dont forget the eclectic mix of crafts, even featuring vinyls and CDs!! The market also offers lots of hot tasty treats and fantastic coffee to enjoy as you walk round and provides tables and chairs so you can rest and chat to your pals while the kids run round. Buskers and even choirs have started to turn up and the result is a fun, relaxed, social – even continental – feel for your Sunday. Come and help us celebrate our birthday – we are offering a free raffle with a packed market hamper as prize, and there will be balloons and free activities for the kids.

Come and see us … we are waiting for you!

Our forgotten Open Spaces

Following on from the letter that was sent in this week from local resident, Robert Pearson, we have decided to run an article about our Open Spaces. In Roberts letter he tells us a story of the derelict land sites in Muirhouse being overgrown with weeds, unsightly and not what you would expect to find in a City like Edinburgh. Unfortunately for Residents in North Edinburgh this appears to be an issue all across the Neighbourhood and not just focused on one area.

This is how the other looked after the first year. (Picture: Robert Pearson)

In Drylaw the grass that runs along the cycle path has been left to grow and now stands around three feet high and this has led to a rise in the amount of rubbish that is being dumped. Not only does it cause issues around fly tipping its also a hazard for Dogs who may be being walked in the area.

We contacted Local housing & Regeneration Manager Henry Coyle and he said ” In terms of the timeline for 21st Century Homes development, both the northern and southern areas of Pennywell and Muirhouse have Planning Permission in Principle in place, and further progress was made earlier this month, with the granting of further Planning Permission in Principle for the central area of Muirhouse (Muirhouse Avenue to Pennywell Gardens).

Now the same area is full of weeds and cant be used for anything. (Picture: Robert Pearson)

These Planning Permissions are based on masterplans that were developed following extensive consultation with the local community. While the wildflowers did take on fantastically well in the first year, this has not been quite as successful and certainly not as colourful in subsequent years.However, I agree that some general maintenance will improve the overall appearance and I have requested that this is carried out ASAP. I have also asked the Task Force to concentrate on the areas closet to the paths and footpaths, to ensure that the routes to school are as tidy as possible and to enable clearer passage for buggies and prams.

We are also currently engaging with the local community through the Centipede Project to develop a brownfield art project on the site to the west end of Muirhouse Avenue. To deliver this, we will enable a group of volunteer ‘guerrilla gardeners’ to take possession and carry out some bulb planting. This is due to take place in early September and I am confident that everyone will soon see a real improvement in the general appearance of the the area.

Now two years on the site looks like this — Many areas in Muirhouse now resemble this Image. (Picture: Thomas Brown)

In relation to maintaining the whole area during the ongoing regeneration programme, it was agreed through consultation with local groups that cleared sites would be planted as wildflower meadows until such time as development takes hold. The trip rails and wildflower planting have generally been very successful in deterring antisocial behaviour on these sites, such as fly tipping and setting bonfires.”

This is a claim that is refuted by local activist Grant Cunningham, Grant was the Chairperson of the Save Royston Primary School Group and today Grant is shocked about the condition of the School site. Grant said “The Royston primary site is fast becoming to rack and ruin and all this does is anger a community still hurting from a scandalous decision even further!. We hear lots of talk about the work of the local community Council working hard to improve the area but this is just evidence of another great asset stripped away and left to become an eyesore!.”

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Royston School Site — This was taken today at the Royston Primary School site. (Picture: Thomas Brown)

Local Councillor Vicki Redpath said “Unfortunately sites like Muirhouse have suffered in the time between demolition and regeneration. Local groups and residents were consulted it was decided that wild flower meadows would be created to make the brown field sites more pleasant in the lead up to construction and while they have been successful in deterring some anti-social behaviour such as fly tipping they are not looking at their best. We have spoken to the North Office and they have agreed that some immediate work is required to tidy up the area and this will be started this week.”

What are your views on our open spaces? Please tell us by commenting on this article. Next month we will be reviewing local Play Parks so please get in touch and tell us about the Play parks near you.

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New multi-million pound hotel and ‘urban resort’ for Crewe Toll

THE owners of the Cameron House resort on the banks of Loch Lomond have unveiled plans for a multi-million pound new development in North Edinburgh.

About 120 jobs will be created when the De Vere Group opens its first venture in the capital on the site of an empty office  block at Crewe Toll.

de vere edinburgh — An Artists impression of how the new site will look.

It will be a major boost for the city’s tourism industry, which has seen a number of major hotel schemes either delayed or put on hold in recent years.

The £20 million De Vere  development will feature a 120-room hotel, a health and leisure complex and a conference centre. Facilities will include a  20-metre swimming pool, a restaurant, bar and Starbucks cafe.

The company is asking Edinburgh City Council for permission to build 270 parking spaces at the site due to its expected popularity.

It will be one of 15 new “village urban resorts” the company is planning to add to its  63 existing sites across Britain.

The site at Crewe Toll, will replace Helix House, an office complex that dates back to 1987 but has been lying empty for several years.

Robert Cook, chief executive of De Vere Village Urban Resorts, said: “Edinburgh is a high- priority location for us and we are very excited to be bringing this concept to the city.

Crewe Toll Building — The building is currently empty and has been for some time. (Picture: Thomas Brown)

“The selected site is prominently located in North Edinburgh. The redundant office building on site, Helix House, has been vacant for many years and is becoming something of an eyesore.

“Our new Edinburgh village urban resort will be a positive landmark building in this prominent location.”

De Vere has already begun talks with the city council about the development, set to be next to the Edinburgh headquarters of finance firm State Street.

Local Councillor Iain Whyte said “”The De Vere Group proposal for a hotel at Crewe Toll is a welcome investment in the area that should bring local jobs and will reuse a site that is currently empty. It could make a major impact and revitalise a rather sterile corner of the ward adjacent to the roundabout.

I am conscious that there is the possibility of concerns for nearby residents as a hotel is likely to require a liquor license. I very much hope that De Vere will consult local people properly to ensure that anypotential concerns are addresed in advance.”

Ian Kettlewell, associate director of planning consultants Nathaniel Lichfield, said: “This exciting new development will regenerate an important and prominent site, removing a building that has been vacant for a number of years.

“The new village urban resort will create 120 new jobs, offering significant training opportunities and boost to the local economy, as well as further jobs during the construction phase,”

Ward Councillor Gavin Barrie said “This appears at first sight to be a welcome proposal to develop a sites here currently a vacant and decaying building stands but proper cognisance of the wishes and thoughts of the local community must besought before any decisions are made.”

Major hotel projects delayed in Edinburgh in recent years  include Caltongate, near Waverley Station, one earmarked for a site next to Haymarket Station, the former Royal High School and the site of the St James  Centre.

CORE no more

core6 — CASTING VOTES: members vote to close CORE

CORE (Community Organisation for Racial Equality) has closed. Members voted last night to dissolve the organisation, but there’s hope that something can be salvaged from ashes of the old BCDP …

It started raining at lunchtime and it simply didn’t stop. It rained and it rained and it was still raining when around sixty CORE members, supporters and service users trooped in to Royston Wardieburn to deliver the coup de grace to an organisation that has been an important feature of North Edinburgh community life for 17 years. The mood matched the miserable weather as CORE – like North Edinburgh Trust (NET, formerly Pilton Partnership) and North Edinburgh News (NEN) before it – became the latest casualty of funding cuts.

Facing funding shortfalls, dramatically decreasing reserves and a serious pension deficit (for which individual committee members could be held liable), four office bearers – all volunteers – have battled to save the organisation since May, but they were finally forced to bow to the inevitable and admit defeat.

Chairman Fernando Almeida Diniz said: “It is not just one thing, but a combination of events, decisions and circumstances that have brought about this unhappy day. There is no one reason, and no individual, to blame, but there is one key message – the sole factor that triggered CORE’s closure is financial. We have looked at all options, and sadly there is no alternative.”

Development worker Adil Ibrahim stayed on to support CORE as a volunteer when trouble hit the organisation, and Adil and former chairperson Mariam Gallander made a brief presentation on CORE’s activities over both the last twelve months and some other recent successful initiatives; a final opportunity to reflect on an illustrious past.

It was left to Honorary Chairman Daniel Onifade to go through the formality of the vote to dissolve the organisation. With no other viable options available, members voted 20 – 3 with one abstention to close CORE, and at 7.20pm the organisation was formally dissolved. Mr Onifade said: “I have known, and been involved with, the organisation since before the Black Community Development Project was born, so this is an extremely sad day for us all.”

However there are hopes that all that was good about CORE can be retained; through existing organisations and agencies or perhaps even through a new group. During a discussion session chaired by Forth councillor Vicki Redpath, city council equalities chief Nick Croft said: “We could spend time talking about what went wrong – quite bluntly, Edinburgh lost out to the West of Scotland when it came to employability funding, and CORE’s application was not the best – but I think it’s more important that we build on the positive energy that has been generated this evening to ensure that we build services to meet the local community’s needs.”

That ‘positive energy’ produced a ‘transition group’ of six volunteers which will work with council officers and other agencies to ensure gaps in provision for the black and minority ethnic community are addressed short-term and that any new services are designed to meet both their needs and those of the wider community too. Royston Wardieburn will initially become a ‘hub’ for these activities while evaluation work is ongoing, and voluntary organisations – both local and city-wide – have also offered their support. An initial meeting of interested parties will take place within two weeks.

So yes, a sad evening – but an evening with some positives too. And leaving the meeting, the rain had stopped.

NEN: Old vs New(s)

thumbnailCAC27RQQ — These things will never catch on …

I am faced with a dilemma. This evening, Pilton Central Association will be holding their annual general meeting in West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre. The PCA has supported community initiatives across Greater Pilton for over fifty years, and just this month sponsored the latest edition of the NEN.

But over at Stockbridge Library, Tom Allan will be the hosting the first of our NENgage social media sessions – an opportunity to learn all you need to know about Facebook, Twitter, blogs – you name it, if it’s new media Tom will be covering it!

The old and the new – what to do?

Well, I’m a traditionalist. I was lucky enough to grow up and work during the golden age of newspapers. There are no words to describe the feeling in your gut when the presses started up under the old Scotman building on North Bridge. Deep in the bowels of the building, a klaxon would sound and you’d feel the building literally shake as the massive printing presses rumbled up to speed. Down in the machine room below Market Street the noise was deafening, and oh, the smell of newsprint and ink – and drink, but that’s another story!

So yes, I love newspapers – the feel of them, the smell of them and long may they be with us. I hope there will always be a place for newspapers.

But there’s no denying that technology has moved on, and that people’s demands and expectations have changed. Newspapers are extremely expensive to produce and the second a newspaper has gone to print, the news is out of date. And by the time it hits the streets – particularly for papers like the NEN – it can be very old news indeed. People today expect to be kept up to date instantly – and that’s now possible. We have instant, accessible 24 hour news whenever we want it, and that’s thanks to new technology and new media.

Now I won’t pretend that I’m an avid disciple of the new media. I don’t feel the need to know that Tom ‘likes McDonald’s’ on Facebook, that Dick ‘is waiting for a bus’ on Twitter or that Harry is ‘wondering what to make for tea’ on his blog. I don’t need to know these things, and I don’t know why some people feel the need to share the minutiae of their daily lives with the whole world. Some of the more enthusiastic devotees surely don’t have time to live a life, they’re so busy telling the Twittersphere what they’re doing/thinking/planning/have done/will do/might do tomorrow if they’ve got time OMG! However that’s just me; we’re all different.

New media does have a role; and as you’re reading this you’ll be aware that NEN has a blog, a Twitter account and a Facebook page. The blog was created in January 2011 and so far there have been 693 posts (this will be 694), around 45,000 views, we have 72 followers plus another 375 Twitter followers. Our busiest day was Jan 16 this year when we had 2200 ‘views’ for a story about a local woman who had been attacked. The internet allows us to reach readers far and wide – we’ve been accessed from Australia, Nigeria, the USA and Moldova. And you won’t find copies of the NEN in your local library or community centre in Chisinau!

So new (and newer and newer) media is here to stay, and I would like to have attended this evening’s first workshop session. However the workshop is the first in a series, and there will be other opportunities, so instead I will take my leaky pen and battered old notepad to join my old pals at West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre – the iPads, laptops, Blackberries and PDA mobile phones will just have to wait!

PS:

Just a thought. I could always attend the start of the Stockbridge session and then leave for West Pilton, using a modern transportation technology called the motorised omnibus!

Local schoolkids – get writing!

The annual Green Pencil Award, a creative writing competition for Edinburgh children, was launched yesterday. The theme of this year’s Award, which is run by The City of Edinburgh Council for children in the P4 – P7 age range, is ‘Birds & Beasties’, encouraging entrants to write about wildlife they encounter in their garden, local park etc.

Over 1,100 entries were received in 2011 with last year’s overall winner, James Macnab from Cargilfield School, winning the prestigious Green Pencil Award Trophy for his entry ‘The Last Christmas Tree’.

In addition to the trophy there are various activity prizes for the winner and their class mates donated by the Scottish Seabird Centre, RSPB, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Forestry Commission Scotland, Forest Rangers, Scottish Natural Heritage and The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.

The awards will be presented on Friday 23 November at the Central Reference Library on George IV Bridge.

Councillor Richard Lewis, Culture and Leisure Convener for The City of Edinburgh Council said: ‘The competition presents a wonderful opportunity for our young people to demonstrate their creative writing skills and to show how much they know and care about protecting their environment. I look forward to seeing another excellent range of entries from children throughout the city.’

Helping launch the 2012 competition, Ron Butlin, Edinburgh Makar (Poet Laureate) said: ‘The Green Pencil Award is surely one of the most important children’s writing competions there is. Year after year it fires up children’s imaginations about topics that really affect us all. I’m very much looking forward to hear what the boys and girls will say about ‘Birds & Beasties’. I know it will be imaginative, thought-provoking – and, most of all, exciting!’

The creative writing can be either poetry or prose but must only take up one side of A4.

The competition, run by Edinburgh City Libraries and Eco-Schools in Edinburgh seeks to: promote literacy and creative writing; demonstrate care and understanding of environmental issues; encourage learning; link to Curriculum for Excellence aspirations and strengthen partnership working between libraries, schools and other partners.

Participation is invited through local libraries, schools and the Council website with a closing date of Friday 12 October.

Further support for schools and teachers is on offer this year through three Live Literature creative workshop sessions with local schools, part funded by the Scottish Booktrust and being led by acclaimed local authors Vivian French, Anita Govan and Lari Don. The support to participating schools is also being extended with a further two creative writing sessions run by the council’s own Reader in Residence Ryan van Winkle to local schools in Muirhouse and Portobello.

Two creative writing training sessions for participating teachers are also being run to help inspire teachers to encourage their classes to enter.

The main supporters for Green Pencil Award 2012 are: The Scottish Book Trust, The Scottish Poetry Library, UNESCO City of Literature, The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, Forestry Commission Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage, the Scottish Seabird Centre, RSPB and the Forest Education Initiative.