Day: January 31, 2013

Eleven month lifeline for Leith Waterworld

Councillors today voted to further explore the feasibility of reopening Leith Waterworld. Campaign group Splashback will now have council support during an 11-month development phase to establish whether the facility can be operated within the parameters of a finalised business plan.

The continuation of the bid beyond this phase is dependent on the community group securing the necessary capital funding to invest in the facility and, further, on their business plan meeting with the approval of an independent third party.

The council will release a maximum of £100,000 to help fund the feasibility study and a dedicated Councillor/ Officer Working-Group will be set up to support Splashback in developing their bid. A report on the results of the study will be considered by councillors once the development phase ends, following which a decision on the facility’s future will be taken.

Councillor Richard Lewis, Culture and Leisure Convener, said: “I want to acknowledge the considerable time and effort that Splashback have committed to their bid thus far. While there remains a tremendous amount of work to be done in the months ahead, we want to give the community the best possible chance of success by providing the necessary funding and support toward taking their proposals to the next phase. We owe it to the people of Edinburgh to do everything we can to preserve this valuable community asset.”

On 20 September, councillors had granted Splashback additional time, plus dedicated support from council officers, to present a more robust business case, and today’s decision has given the campaign group renewed hope that the facility can now be saved.

However Johnny Gailey, a founder member of the campaign, says the council decision is only a reprieve and there’s a lot of hard work to be done. “What’s been voted on today is a reprieve if you like – the council could be much more pro-active about exploring all the options, so we do feel this is an achievement but it’s not a result”, he said. “This is not our preferred option – our first choice was always that the pool should remain in public ownership. That’s been denied, and so we’ve been forced to think about second choices. We now have to put a call out to people in the wider community, and also to other third sector partners to help us with a bid. That call out will also be to Edinburgh Leisure and to the city council – they are part of the community too, and they need to be part of this process.”

Green Councillor for Leith Chas Booth supported the Splashback campaign and he is delighted with the council decision. He said: “I am delighted that the Council has seen the wisdom of backing community ownership of this much-loved asset and has seen the social, health and economic benefits of re-opening the pool. We now have a period of almost a year to finalise the business case and get children and other pool users back in the water.”

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Edinburgh College to create specialist centres

EDINBURGH College is creating two new specialist centres to offer students real opportunities to find real jobs in 2013 and beyond. The decision to create the curriculum centres in engineering and construction trades for the academic year 2013-14 follows a pledge by the college to ensure that it offers courses directly relevant to the needs of the employment market.

Students in the specialist centres will benefit from access to a wider group of skilled, expert staff and a greater concentration of investment in one location.

One of the specialist centres, which will open in academic year 2013-14, is The Institute of Building and Crafts, which will be based at the college’s Forthside campus in Granton.

The second new specialist centres is called Engineering+ and will be based at the college’s Midlothian campus in Dalkeith. The campus has already made a name for itself with successful training programmes for the oil and gas industry, as well as a pioneering project to monitor the performance of electric vehicles – the largest of its kind in Scotland. The new centre will build on an already strong focus on clean and green technology.

Mandy Exley, Principal of Edinburgh College, said: “The document setting out the vision for the new college promised to create national curriculum hubs to provide opportunities for students to enhance their creativity, employability and entrepreneurial skills. This announcement is the start of us delivering on that promise.

“We want to bring together a range of expert staff to deliver the very best training for our young people – and our focus is very strongly on those areas where there are employment opportunities, now and in the future. Edinburgh College students doing courses at these specialist centres will be very well-placed to get good jobs in the immediate region and beyond – because the centres will be among the best in the UK.”

Ms Exley is the first Principal of Edinburgh College, created in October 2012 from a merger of three partners – Edinburgh’s Telford College, Jewel & Esk College and Stevenson College Edinburgh.

She added: “Our first responsibility is always to our students. A large part of that responsibility is offering them the right kind of education and training – to equip them with the skills that employers want in 2013 and beyond. In the current economic climate, it is more important than ever for colleges to provide a modern and innovative curriculum which matches the current and future needs of the regional economy as closely as possible.”

Steve Tinsley, Vice-Principal, Corporate Development at Edinburgh College, said: “The Midlothian campus has already developed a fantastic reputation for high-quality and innovative training in a broad range of engineering disciplines – and this move will build on that. The electric vehicle project and the solar meadow taking shape next to the campus are right at the cutting-edge of anything that is happening in Scotland and in some cases, the UK. Edinburgh College is carving out a fantastic reputation for its work in this area and the concentration of expertise allows us to build on that, delivering more opportunities for careers in renewables and the low carbon economy.”

Mandy Exley added: “The construction trades are still hugely important with a number of large projects coming on-stream. There will be a strong focus on the heritage trades, which are significant in Edinburgh.”

Engineering or construction trades courses currently provided at other locations will move to Midlothian or Granton from the start of the new academic year in September – with the exception of highly-regarded automotive and motor vehicle engineering courses at Sighthill campus.

For example, both Fabrication & Welding and Micro-Renewables will move from Granton to the new engineering hub at Midlothian, while all carpentry, joinery and construction trades currently offered in Midlothian moves to Granton. The college has stressed that there will be no impact on courses this academic year and says the changes will be implemented with the minimum of disruption.

The lease on the college’s small South Gyle campus will expire this summer and provision offered there would have had to be relocated across other campuses. It was decided that it made sense to invest in the specialist centres instead of spreading provision across all the college campuses.

All staff in the departments covered by the changes and Edinburgh College Students’ Association have been informed.

EdColl

 

D Day for Leith Waterworld

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Councillors will decide today (31 January) whether to back a community bid to operate Leith Waterworld.

An officer report, which will be considered at today’s council meeting, concludes that the revised business case submitted by campaign group, Splashback, is not commercially viable and does not offer best value to the Council, and recommends that the property be remarketed for sale. However campaigners believe that their plans do stack up and that Leith Waterdworld could be reopened as early as October this year.

Councillors agreed on 20 September to offer an extension to the campaigners and to provide dedicated assistance from the Council’s Economic Development unit to enable them to prepare a more robust business case.

The revised submission features two options: the first would be to operate the venue using its existing facilities; the second would add a large soft play feature in the glass entrance atrium and create a new café.

Both options would still require a significant ongoing subsidy from the Council, for which no budget currently exists, and neither would generate the funds required to help pay for the recently completed refurbishment of the Royal Commonwealth Pool.

The process had previously been postponed for six months to allow Splashback to come forward with alternative proposals for the pool, which has been closed since January 2012. This followed a decision taken in 2005 to put the property up for sale.

Splashback, the community group set up to save Leith Waterworld, believes their figures stack up. They claim:

“Through running the facility as a community led iniatitive, we believe we can
  • provide a fun and enjoyable leisure destination for over 150,000 users per annum
  • reduce the subsidy required from Council for the pool to well under the Scottish average for pools – £260,000
  • In fact through increased soft play and additional revenue streams, we can bring the subsidy right down to circa £20,000 by year 3
  • In doing so we would bring potentially approx 60 jobs to the Leith area through direct employment and supply chains
  • and generate an additional £460,000 for the local Leith economy.
  • These benefits are in addition to the potential saving to public spending through increased wellbeing in the area.

We will be asking the Council on 31st January for an agreement in principle, to allow us to progress with more detailed planning and fundraising.  At the end of six months, we would take the shared decision with the Council whether to progress to reopening, which is currently rescheduled for October 2013.”

Splashback conclude: “With the massive success of the Olympics and the Paralympics last year and the
Commonwealth Games next year, there is much talk, at the moment, of ‘legacy’. There appears to be a growing awareness and understanding that yes whilst these elite events can provide an amazing spectacle, more than that participation and sport can make a real difference at community level. Dundee Council are
currently building a new leisure pool at the cost of £31m, as are Perth at the cost of £15m.  Edinburgh has had no leisure pool for over a year.  We hope that the Council after reading our business plan, share with us, the desire to rectify that and reopen Leith Waterworld.”

Cllr Richard Lewis, Culture and Leisure Convener, said: “I said previously that I would be delighted if an affordable and achievable community bid came forward and I acknowledge the time and effort that Splashback have invested in this. We gave the group the opportunity to bring back a more robust bid and it is now up to us as councillors to consider the arguments and reach a decision in the best interests of the city.”

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New Multicultural Family Group Programme at Royston Wardieburn

family

Royston Wardieburn Community Centre has just established a new Multi-Cultural Family Group and there will be loads of activities over the ten-week pilot – see the attached Programme for a taste of what’s being planned at the Centre – the programme will evolve over the weeks. 

Interested? Call Lydia at Royston Wardieburn Community Centre on 552 5700 or email her at lydia.markham@ea.edin.sch.uk

Multi Cultural Programme