Author: davepickering

Edinburgh reporter and photographer

Fighting Back: local campaigners take case to City Council

Council will work with campaigners to tackle poverty

The city council have pledged to work with community groups to address poverty and inequalities. Councillors made their commitment after hearing a deputation of campaigners from North Edinburgh at last month’s full council meeting.The North Edinburgh activists presented councillors with individual copies of the community’s Anti-Poverty Charter at the council meeting on 28 June. The idea for Charter was born at a community conference held in Craigroyston High School late last year, and campaigners urged councillors to adopt the Charter’s principles in a united fight against poverty and deprivation. In a joint deputation members of North Edinburgh Fights Back and North Edinburgh Women’s Group told councillors that more needs to be done at all levels of government to address social injustice and tackle the scourge of poverty.

John Mulvey told the meeting: “North Edinburgh Fights Back is definitely not ‘The Big Society’. It’s not very often that I align myself with bishops, but I can only agree with the Bishop of Canterbury when he describes David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ as ‘aspirational waffle’.

He went on: “The demands are not unique to North Edinburgh and indeed apply to communities across Scotland. However the Charter calls upon you as the local authority to do specific things and to team up with groups like North Edinburgh Fights Back to engage with institutions like, for example, the energy companies to put pressure on them to respond positively to the aims of the Charter.” John Mulvey concluded: “Can we afford it? The real question is can we afford not to? If we can afford to spend billions and billions on a replacement for Trident, and more billions and billions on tax breaks for the rich, clearly for a decent society for all of our citizens the demands laid out in the Charter must be addressed.”

Danielle Ward of North Edinburgh Young People’s Forum demanded an end to Workfare and called for more opportunities for young people in training, education and employment while veteran campaigner Tony Delahoy made ‘five moderate requests’ on behalf of older people.

Cathy Ahmed of Muirhouse Women’s Group demanded an end to cuts that hit the poorest families hardest and there were further calls for action to tackle fuel poverty and social housing shortages.The wide-ranging charter has sections on Young People, Senior Citizens, Women, Living Wage and Employment Rights, Privatisation and Education, Fuel Poverty and Housing and Racism.

That’s quite a comprehensive shopping list, but the council agreed a motion from Forth councillor Cammy Day to ‘commend the highly successful community conference organised by the groups, specifically in regards to highlighting poverty, inequality of fuel poverty. Council welcomes the Ant-Poverty Charter and agrees to work with these groups in addressing poverty and inequalities’. Leith Walk Labour councillor Nick Gardner invited the deputation to come back in five years to see how the council has performed on it’s pledges, but it’s likely that the North Edinburgh Fights Back campaigners will be back long before then! Cathy Ahmed said after the meeting: “Five years? We could a’ be deid by then! We hope that this council will take our community’s demands seriously and act now – we’re sick of politicians’ broken promises and actions speak louder than words”.

Murray mania! (NEN jumps on bandwagon)

I’ve tried to find a link – however tenuous – between North Edinburgh and Andy Murray, but without success. I’ve been unable to track down a distant cousin in West Granton or long-lost former playing partner in Pilton.

However Murray’s mum Judy definitely played tennis in Edinburgh (at Blackhall, Barnton or St Serf’s maybe?) and Andy must occasionally drive through the area on his way to Easter Road, so the NEN is proud to adopt Andy Murray as one of our own – unless he gets beat, of course, in which case you will never again read his name again on these pages – or until next year, anyway!

Dunblane’s finest will become either the greatest Briton since Winston Churchill – or revert to being a sulking, miserable, surly Scottish loser – depending on this afternoon’s result.

The crushing weight of the nation’s expectations sit on Murray’s shoulders, but Britons always win at Wimbledon in Jubilee Years – it’s the law!

Come on, Andy – it’s your destiny!

Waters subside but flood warnings remain in place

Stockbridge, Cramond and Warriston were among the areas hardest hit by flooding today, and at 9pm SEPA flood warnings remain in place for those areas and Roseburn.

Around forty homes in the Stockbridge colonies were affected by flooding from the Water of Leith. The city council’s Flood Prevention team worked with emergency services to provide sandbags to affected households and Stockbridge Primary School was set up as a standby rest and information centre.

River levels are now dropping and rain has eased, but light rain is forecast to continue overnight.

Anyone with concerns about flooding should contact the Council’s Emergency Contact Centre on 0131 200 2000 and you can get information on flood alerts by calling the SEPA Floodline on 0845 988 1188.

No swings but roundabouts at Drylaw Telford Community Council

June’s meeting centred on one roundabout in particular – the one in Groathill Road North. Drylaw Telford community councillors are unhappy about the money that was spent on ‘environmental improvements’ to this roundabout and the meeting on 27 June was an attempt to resolve the dissatisfaction.

The saga began last year when Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership’s NEP (Neighbourhood Environment Programme) allocated almost £13,000 to make environmental improvements to the roundabout, which was then surrounded by fencing. It was decided that the fencing was no longer required and that the money should be used to remove the fencing and to landscape the roundabout.

Drylaw Telford Community Association (Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre’s management committee) successfully bid to manage the piece of work, but four contractors later the roundabout is looking sadder than ever.

Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre worker Thomas Brown joined local Roads Manager Neil MacFarlane at last month’s meeting to establish what had gone wrong and to forge a new road ahead (!)

The main problem identified by the Community Council was that the design for the roundabout planting was not of acceptable quality. Neil McFarlane said that the design had been produced by Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre’s Gardening Group and that the Council will not accept responsibility for the roundabout’s maintenance as the original project is considered to be unfinished.

Thomas Brown said that there had been problems with contractors almost since the very beginning of the project, and the current contractor was the fourth to take on the work.

After a discussion it was agreed that a report will go Inverleith Neighbourhood Partnership when contractors finish remedial work next month. In the meantime a small working group of community councillors, Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre staff and council officers will look at reworking the landscaping design to come up with practical, low maintenance – and affordable – alternative before the council takes ownership of the site in August.

Neil MacFarlane said: “This was the first scheme in Inverleith where local people actually did the work and delivered the scheme. We have got to learn lessons from this project as we do not want to make the same mistakes again”.

Drylaw Telford Community Council chair Alex Dale said: “It’s clear that mistakes have been made, but what’s in the past is past – it’s time to move forward and to try to resolve this”.

In other business, Councillor Nigel Bagshaw reported that he had been able to establish a list of all the owners of premises in Drylaw Shopping Centre. The dilapidated state of the shopping centre has been a concern for the community council for many months now – leaking canopies, run-down shop fronts and cracked and broken footways have been raised consistently at meetings over the last year. Now, with a list of current owners, the community council hopes to work with Inverleith councillors and local shopkeepers to improve the local shopping area.

There was also a flying visit from Mike Clark, who stepped down as chair last month. Mike was presented with a token of appreciation by Alex Dale (above, pic John Stuart).

Drylaw Telford Community Council has a month off now and doesn’t meet again until Wednesday 29 August at 7pm in Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre. As always, all welcome.

PCHP up for the challenge – and Barri's back!

Pilton Community Health Project (PCHP) has come through a tough year, and it would have been no surprise to have found staff and board feeling a bit down at their recent annual general meeting. That wasn’t the case, however, and a steady succession of staff and volunteers took turns to highlight some of the exciting initiatives they have planned for the year ahead. 

PCHP is one of North Edinburgh’s oldest community organisations. Set up originally as The Health Hut, the project celebrated it’s 25th anniversary in 2010. Like all community projects PCHP has had it’s share of ups and downs over the years but there’s no doubt that last year was one of the toughest of them all.

Chairperson Irene Garden told the annual general meeting on 26 June: “As in previous years we were faced with severe cuts, so we have had to say goodbye to the Barri Grubb shop, with four redundancies. That was a very sad time for us all, and other, much-valued staff have also had to leave because their funding was not renewed. Our former manager Dave Hewitt left at Christmas, so we have lost a lot of good colleagues; familiar faces that were popular and well-known in the community”.

However Irene went on to highlight some of the project’s successes. “There is still a lot to be positive about – among other things we have recruited a new worker to do some research for Barri Grubb, the Muirhouse Million Steps project (pictured below) was both original and very successful and our school counselling sessions have been very well received. Women Supporting Women continues to offer excellent one to one support and we are delighted that waiting lists are now coming down and that people in our community are getting counselling when they need it. Thanks to our brilliant volunteers our Befriending Service is also going from strength to strength – and volunteers are the backbone of the very successful Walking Project too”.

Manager Jen Richards (pictured below) told the meeting: “I have already spent two and a half years here in different roles and I am very passionate about keeping our services going – Pilton Community Health Project has been part of this community for 27 years and I’d love to think we can be here for another twenty-seven”.

Jen said her priorities over the coming months will be to raise the project’s profile, maximising funding by looking at new income generation streams and developing and building new and existing partnerships.

“There have been a lot of changes and I’m very grateful to very talented and totally dedicated we have here – I really value their support in a very challenging environment. Yes, it is challenging but I’m sure we’ll come out smiling at the other end!”

Local councillor Cammy Day then conducted election business before the staff team gave updates on both what’s been happening and what’s going to be happening this year. And there’s an awful lot to look forward to at PCHP …

Community Healthy Lifestyles Project’s Motivate to Move and Muirhouse Million Steps 2012, Use Your Loaf – a bread baking class that will be taking place at North Edinburgh Arts Centre, a major consultation into men’s health to find the gaps in current service provision. Then there are plans to develop the popular walking programme, the possible development of a Zumba class in Stockbridge as a social enterprise, continuing to meet the needs for counselling services. The recently launched SOURCE information room will be developed and good news about Barri Grubb, too – Barri’s no’ deid at a’! While the shop is no more, the service has been restructured and Barri Grubb will be relaunched – maybe with a name change – in the near future. In the meantime summer events are planned; a community food map, more partnership working and the Food for Thought forum will be expanded …

Yummy Food Festival was a big success too …

That’s quite a catalogue – check out Pilton Community Health Project’s website at www.pchp.org.uk for more information.

 

 

 

PCHP up for the challenge – and Barri’s back!

Pilton Community Health Project (PCHP) has come through a tough year, and it would have been no surprise to have found staff and board feeling a bit down at their recent annual general meeting. That wasn’t the case, however, and a steady succession of staff and volunteers took turns to highlight some of the exciting initiatives they have planned for the year ahead. 

PCHP is one of North Edinburgh’s oldest community organisations. Set up originally as The Health Hut, the project celebrated it’s 25th anniversary in 2010. Like all community projects PCHP has had it’s share of ups and downs over the years but there’s no doubt that last year was one of the toughest of them all.

Chairperson Irene Garden told the annual general meeting on 26 June: “As in previous years we were faced with severe cuts, so we have had to say goodbye to the Barri Grubb shop, with four redundancies. That was a very sad time for us all, and other, much-valued staff have also had to leave because their funding was not renewed. Our former manager Dave Hewitt left at Christmas, so we have lost a lot of good colleagues; familiar faces that were popular and well-known in the community”.

However Irene went on to highlight some of the project’s successes. “There is still a lot to be positive about – among other things we have recruited a new worker to do some research for Barri Grubb, the Muirhouse Million Steps project (pictured below) was both original and very successful and our school counselling sessions have been very well received. Women Supporting Women continues to offer excellent one to one support and we are delighted that waiting lists are now coming down and that people in our community are getting counselling when they need it. Thanks to our brilliant volunteers our Befriending Service is also going from strength to strength – and volunteers are the backbone of the very successful Walking Project too”.

Manager Jen Richards (pictured below) told the meeting: “I have already spent two and a half years here in different roles and I am very passionate about keeping our services going – Pilton Community Health Project has been part of this community for 27 years and I’d love to think we can be here for another twenty-seven”.

Jen said her priorities over the coming months will be to raise the project’s profile, maximising funding by looking at new income generation streams and developing and building new and existing partnerships.

“There have been a lot of changes and I’m very grateful to very talented and totally dedicated we have here – I really value their support in a very challenging environment. Yes, it is challenging but I’m sure we’ll come out smiling at the other end!”

Local councillor Cammy Day then conducted election business before the staff team gave updates on both what’s been happening and what’s going to be happening this year. And there’s an awful lot to look forward to at PCHP …

Community Healthy Lifestyles Project’s Motivate to Move and Muirhouse Million Steps 2012, Use Your Loaf – a bread baking class that will be taking place at North Edinburgh Arts Centre, a major consultation into men’s health to find the gaps in current service provision. Then there are plans to develop the popular walking programme, the possible development of a Zumba class in Stockbridge as a social enterprise, continuing to meet the needs for counselling services. The recently launched SOURCE information room will be developed and good news about Barri Grubb, too – Barri’s no’ deid at a’! While the shop is no more, the service has been restructured and Barri Grubb will be relaunched – maybe with a name change – in the near future. In the meantime summer events are planned; a community food map, more partnership working and the Food for Thought forum will be expanded …

Yummy Food Festival was a big success too …

That’s quite a catalogue – check out Pilton Community Health Project’s website at www.pchp.org.uk for more information.