Day: January 30, 2018

Boswall Parkway: Re-Imagine Your Street

BIODIVERSITY WORKSHOPS

Thursday 1st February

3pm – 5.30pm or 6pm – 8:30pm

Granton United Church, Boswall Parkway

The Workshop will ask:

  • How might Boswall Parkway look in the future?
  • what challenges and opportunities might there be?

Funded by Adaptation Scotland, the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh is running this pilot project to consult with communities about solutions to climate change and adaptation.

Following an open application process, the Re-Imagining Your Gardens & Streets project was chosen to be our latest Community Engagement Pioneer Project. Jointly ran by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and Heriot-Watt University, the project will investigate a range of community engagement techniques by running outreach events focused on generating ideas to transform streets in the Granton area into well adapted community spaces.

The design of streets and gardens can significantly influence an areas resilience to climate impacts, with large amounts of paved areas contributing to surface water flooding, reduced biodiversity and urban heat island effect. These spaces are also literally on our doorsteps, and represent a tangible and immediate route in to talking to communities about wider adaptation themes.

However, community improvements are best driven by community aspiration, so this project will focus on first introducing the broad concept of creating well adapted streets and gardens, and then facilitate a community conversation to find the ideal interpretation for this unique area.

We will be working with the creative practitioners from the Museum of Future Now to help community members imagine this aspiration future and the ideas they come up with will be turned into illustrations for display in the community hub.

Alongside this, a neighbourhood adaptation planning tool will be created to help other areas explore the possible routes to creating well adapted gardens and streets. This work will compliment other initiatives ongoing in the city, including Edinburgh Living Landscape and Edinburgh Adapts.

There’s still time to book your workshop place: contact Leone on 0791 873 6481 or email lalexander@rgbe.org.uk

 

 

Social Bite’s Josh Littlejohn to address local community council

Josh Littlejohn MBE, founder of Social Bite and the man behind the homeless village on the Granton waterfront, will be guest speaker at West Pilton & West Granton Community Council next week.

The meeting takes place on Tuesday 6 February at 7pm in West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre. All welcome.

Tourist tax “far from welcoming”, says Timberbush Tours boss

Think again, pleads tour operator

The chief of a local tour company has appealed to councillors to reconsider plans to introduce a ‘tourist tax’. The city council estimates it must make savings of £150 million over the next five years and will propose a range of measures to address this in in next month’s budget. Councillors see the introduction of a ‘tourist tax’ as one way of avoiding even deeper cuts to council services, but business leaders have warned that any new surcharge on visitors to the city would see them vote with their wallets and choose to go elsewhere. Continue reading Tourist tax “far from welcoming”, says Timberbush Tours boss

Show caution when using public Wifi, warns industry expert

PUBLIC WiFi networks can provide the perfect opportunity to fool unsuspecting users into sharing personal details, according to leading experts. In the run-up to Safer Internet Day, the Scottish Business Resilience Centre (SBRC) is urging caution to those who connect to free WiFi hotspots due to potential risks many people will be unaware of. Continue reading Show caution when using public Wifi, warns industry expert

£4000 target for charitable winemaker’s latest vintage

AN inspiring winemaker who has raised more than £4500 through sales of his artisan red wine has launched a new vintage from 2016. Edinburgh local Giles Cooke is the man behind Our Fathers Wine, where since 2014 he has used his winemaking expertise to create a distinctive Shiraz using fruit from Australia’s Barossa Valley. All profits go to charities close to his heart, and Giles hopes that the new vintage, of which there is just 1000 bottles, could add a further £4000 to charity funds raised. Continue reading £4000 target for charitable winemaker’s latest vintage

Beating the cheats: UK Anti-Doping receives £6 million funding boost

Budget increased in the run up to Tokyo 2020 to cement UKAD’s position as one of the leading anti-doping agencies in the world

  • Investment of £6.1 million will help educate athletes, share intelligence and conduct testing in the fight against drug cheats to keep sport clean
  • Sports Minister Tracey Crouch also publishes second annual update on government’s sport strategy that shows progress on governance,

UK Anti-Doping is to receive an additional £6 million of funding from the government to further strengthen its armoury in the fight against doping, Sports Minister Tracey Crouch announced today.

The move comes after the first full-scale review of the organisation since it was set up in 2009 that has resulted in a number of recommendations to help make further progress in anti-doping.

These include:

  • UKAD to consider submitting a framework to government and sports to allow doping control officers to have unfettered access to conduct random testing at competitions
  • UKAD to encourage greater collaboration from law enforcement agencies and to ensure whistleblowers have confidence to come forward
  • Sports in receipt of public funding to report annually on their anti-doping education programmes to UKAD and publish this information on their websites
  • Health harms associated with the abuses of Image and Performance Enhancing Drugs (IPEDs) should be integrated into drug information and education supported by Public Health England, Public Health Wales, Health Scotland, Public Health (Northern Ireland) and the Home Office Drugs Strategy
  • Government should revise the National Anti-Doping Policy by September 2018 in consultation with UKAD and the Home Country Sport Councils
  • UKAD to ensure that all publicly funded athletes and support personnel participate in annual anti-doping education programmes
  • UKAD to establish an Innovations Committee later this year to signpost new trends in doping
  • A new international strategy to be drawn up by UKAD to help drive a global approach to innovation in anti-doping

The move means that over the next two years UKAD’s budget will be increased by around 50 per cent to help it implement the recommendations in the tailored review.

Sports Minister Tracey Crouch (above) said: “We must do all we can to make sure sport is free from doping and that players and fans are confident that there is a level playing field. This £6 million additional funding for UKAD will help us take the fight even harder to those trying to cheat through doping. It will also help educate people at all levels of sport about the dangers of image and performance enhancing drugs and maintain UKAD’s standing as one of the leading anti-doping agencies in the world.”

UKAD will now work with the DCMS on the specifics of what the additional £6.1 million will be spent on.

UK Anti-Doping Chair Trevor Pearce said: “We are delighted at the news from DCMS today, to significantly increase the funding available to UKAD for the next two years. This clear commitment to clean sport from government will allow us to increase the effectiveness of our current investigation, testing and education programmes, and also importantly to expand our investment into new approaches in the fight against doping. We look forward to working with DCMS on the implementation of recommendations for UKAD and we share their ambition for the UK to lead the world in Anti-Doping.”

Today Tracey Crouch has also published the second annual report to Parliament on the government’s sport strategy ‘Sporting Future.’ Progress made on the implementation of the strategy over includes:

  • Code for Sports governance being adhered to by national governing bodies to ensure greater transparency, accountability and diversity across the sector
  • Continued investment in the sector in line with the change in approach to encouraging participation in sport and physical activity that Sporting Future signalled. Sport England has invested over £530 million of exchequer and lottery money in over 2,500 projects over the past 20 months and is working with a broader range of organisations to get people active.
  • Sports Business Council set up, co-chaired by Tracey Crouch and Premier League executive chairman Richard Scudamore
  • Review of criminalisation of doping completed with recommendations made to strengthen approach to anti-doping
  • Held roundtables on the issue of mental health in physical activity and sport with work ongoing to make progress in this area
  • Duty of Care report published by Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson to help the sector focus on what more can be done to ensure safeguarding of participants at every level
  • Successfully hosted major global sporting events including the 2017 World Athletics Championships
  • Won the right to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham

Tracey Crouch added: “We are making good progress on a number of fronts. We are ensuring our governing bodies have world leading standards of governance as well as targeting funding to encourage new participants in sport and physical activity. There is still more work to do. This year I will particularly focus on mental health in sport and encouraging the sector to continue to step up on safeguarding all participants – from the grassroots to the elite.”

Short term lets report doesn’t address real issue, say Greens

Andy Wightman MSP, Housing spokesperson for the Scottish Greens, said a report published yesterday by a Scottish Government expert panel falls short of critically analysing the impact of the collaborative economy on individuals and communities in relation to short-term lets.

The Green MSP is calling for local councils to be given powers to control the rapid growth of short-term lets to ease the pressure on already limited housing stock, and address constituents’ concerns about anti-social behaviour and loss of community.

Research for Mr Wightman’s Homes First campaign shows that many landlords are operating lucrative short-term letting businesses, and many are not paying non-domestic rates, depriving local authorities of funding for local services.

Mr Wightman said: “While the report contains some useful evidence and recommendations, those concerning short-term lets are framed very much by what is in the vested interests of the industry, AirBnB in particular. They fail to properly analyse and come up with proposals for the real problem which is the conversion of homes to commercial enterprises, and they are dominated by proposals to experiment, gather data, and explore viability when what is need is action very soon to stop any further loss of homes and community in Edinburgh.”

Collaborative Economy report