Excellent: West Pilton West Granton CC ticks the five ‘E’ boxes
West Pilton West Granton Community Council (WPWGCC) was praised as being a great example of what a good community organisation should be at their annual general meeting in West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre last night.
Eric Dobbie, chair of the recently re-elected Edinburgh Association of Community Councils, said the local community council ticks ‘all the boxes – all the five ‘E’s’: Engagement, Encouragement, Empathy, Environment and Enterprise.
He told the meeting: “We have some good community councils and, frankly, we have some rubbish community councils. We can create better and more effective CCs. What you are doing here is very exciting, and your work is a prime example of how it can be done. I’m really encouraged by how you have gone about this – it’s been quite an eye-opener.”
More than thirty people – including members from neighbouring community councils Trinity, Muirhouse Salvesen and Drylaw Telford – attended the meeting. Guest speaker was Councillor Maureen Childs, who talked about the changing role of community councils in community planning.
Secretary Willie Black told the meeting: “It’s been an eventful year for our community council. We’ve had some criticism but we’ve made quite a difference to the area.”
He went on to detail the active role WPWGCC has played in local initiatives over the last twelve months: bringing community councils together with the North team to stage a regeneration conference was one notable example, and community councillors have been active members of other local groups and organisations. There have been community clean-ups too – local folk have cleared ten tonnes of rubbish in four separate area cleanups!
“This sort of activity is being rolled out across the whole area – it’s a different kind of engagement but local people see the benefits and it gives people some pride”, Willie said. “We are lucky to have a lot of experience on our community council. We have members who work with young people and other members who have vast experience of community activities. That’s a real plus – we know what is happening on the ground.”
However the year was dominated by a rise in criminality and antisocial behaviour across the neighbourhood – and this escalated to reach a peak which saw the attempted murder of a local takeaway owner. The community council again came to the fore.
“Following that incident our usual monthly meeting was changed to become a public meeting to discuss community safety and for local people to voice their fears and concerns. There’s no doubt the senior police officers present at that meeting felt the anger of local people – the #StrongerNorth initiative was born out of this and the community council is still playing a leading role there.”
There’s still a lot of work to be done – Willie referred to the ‘Hanging Gardens of Pilton’ – rooftop vegetation on poorly maintained rented properties – and said the community council is working with others to bring landlords together to discuss issues of common concern. Access to Forthview School is another issue for the community council and WPWG also have some exciting plans to improve job prospects for local people – particularly young people – through the establishment of a community factoring service as a social enterprise.
The community council will be taking meetings out to a variety of venues and locations over the next year in a hope that this will generate more interest, and members will also undertake training to make them even more effective at representing their communities.
“The CC has made a marked difference in our area; we have achieved a lot that we can be proud of over the last year. There is momentum and we will build on that”.
