We’re inviting everyone in the community to come along and take part in our upcoming Local Litter Pick for Local Beautification. It’s a great opportunity to do something positive for the area, meet neighbours, and enjoy some fresh air and light exercise.
Date & Time: Monday 5th May
Meet at 10am outside Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre
What’s Provided:
No need to bring anything – we’ll provide all the equipment, including litter pickers and gloves. No experience is needed, just your enthusiasm and a bit of community spirit.
After the Pick:
We’ll finish up around 12 noon, and everyone is invited to join us back at the centre for a free community lunch as a thank-you for your efforts.
Whether you’re a regular volunteer or it’s your first time getting involved, we’d love to see you there. Every bit of help makes a real difference in keeping Drylaw clean, safe, and welcoming for all.
Let’s come together to show our local pride – all ages and abilities welcome!
If you have any questions or accessibility needs, feel free to get in touch with us beforehand.
West Pilton Park will come alive on Saturday, 17th May, from 12:00 to 5:30 PM, as the much-anticipated and award-winning North Edinburgh Community Festival enters its fourth year.
Known for its vibrancy, inclusivity, and celebration of local talent, this year’s festival promises to be bigger, brighter, and more colourful than ever before. With over 10,000 attendees expected, it’s an unmissable event for the entire community.
Festival Highlights
This year, the festival will host over 160 local organisations, charities, and community groups, offering a kaleidoscope of activities—from hair braiding and glitter tattoos to boxing and dodgeball, from live music programmed by Granton Youth and Tinderbox to dance performances and pop-up dance mobs from Edinburgh College, and from Edinburgh Fringe Festival street performers to North Edinburgh Arts for all things arts and crafts.
North Edinburgh Arts and Imaginate have once again collaborated creating commissioned performances that will be performed by local children and young people from the North Edinburgh Youth Arts Collective.
As well as running their jam packed arts and crafts tent for families; their Art for Grown Ups, Arts & Dance and CREATE groups are all planning to join the festival parade en route as it passes by the Macmillan Hub.
We’ll be hosting North Edinburgh’s very own ‘Crufts’ with our first ever ‘Scruffs’ Dog Show – with 6 categories to enter and prizes up for grabs including North Edinburgh’s waggiest tail!
This is hosted by Audrey Coltart of Branniffmhor Cockers, a seasoned professional in dog competitions, and a respected judge!
Whatever your interest,we’ve got it all!
The festival remains free to attend, with 90% of activities free of charge, ensuring accessibility for everyone. While food vans and items will be available for purchase, the festival aims to keep costs low for attendees.
Key Projects Spotlight
The North Edinburgh Community Festival will feature three major projects that celebrate local food, culture, diversity and artistic expression:
THE TATTIE PROJECT
Celebrating the humble potato, this collaborative initiative includes over 10 local organisations such as Lauriston Farm and R2. Residents will engage in activities like growing, harvesting, cooking, and distributing potatoes.
In the food demonstration tent, six local home cooks will share potato recipes from their cultures, highlighting the diversity of local cuisine.
Scran Academy and Empty Kitchens, Full Hearts will serve up 2,000 free hot baked potatoes with toppings, ensuring everyone gets a delicious taste of this staple food.
While we regret the absence of RRT this year due to budget cuts, we remain grateful for the 5,000 free meals they’ve provided at past festivals.
THE NORTH EDINBURGH COMMUNITY CHOIR
A festival legacy project, the choir unites over 100 young people from Pirniehall, St. David’s, Forthview and Craigroyston Primary Schools and Craigroyston High School as well as Tinderbox Music Club to perform at the festival.
Earlier this year, these students had the opportunity to perform with international megastar Ed Sheeran alongside Tinderbox Orchestra at the West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre. Their performance will include his hit song, Bad Habits!
THE FESTIVAL PARADE
Pulse of the Place, Edinburgh Carnival and Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival leads the way with the festival’s largest and most colourful parade yet.
Featuring vibrant costumes, masks, and performances, the parade will embody the theme of rainbows.
Starting at North Edinburgh Childcare, it’s a 1-mile journey into West Pilton Park. The parade departs NEC at 1030am and will reach the park at 12noon to kick off the festivities.
Expect up to 12 dance groups to bring the vibe.
Over 200 families and groups will participate including Oaklands School, LACAE and North Edinburgh Childcare.
Parade participants are welcome to join at the start or en route.
Entertainment Across Three Stages
This year, the festival will feature three unique stages:
Main Stage: Showcasing local community music groups and organisations such as Fischy Music, Ama-zing Harmonies, Tinderbox Tuesday Hub, Rhythms of India and Edinburgh Ukrainian Choir
Indoor Stage – North by North West: A platform for emerging young singers and bands including All the Wrong People, The Clamz, Bows and Bridges and Abigail Kerner
Carnival Stage: Hosting parade participants’ dazzling live performances including Passion 4 Fusion, Street Mash, Sol de Peru and Angie Disney’s Silent Disco!
The North Edinburgh Community Festival is a celebration of collaboration, creativity, and community spirit. Whether you’re attending for the music, activities, food, or simply to soak in the vibrant atmosphere, this event has something for everyone.
Join Us
When: Saturday, 17th May, 12:00 PM – 5:30 PM Where: West Pilton Park, Edinburgh Cost: Free entry
Mark your calendars, bring your friends and family, and experience the magic of the North Edinburgh Community Festival! We can’t wait to see you there!
Three Edinburgh-based community projects have been awarded a total of more than £14,000 in research funding by the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) and Williamson Trust to promote healthy living.
Lauriston Farm and local environmental artist Natalie Taylor will benefit from a share of the funding pot, along with Leith-based Earth in Common.
Lauriston Farm, run by a workers’ cooperative, is dedicated to sustainable food production, biodiversity, and community. They will use their award of £4550 to develop a sustainable alternative to chemical fertilisers using Aerated Compost Teas, a process of mixing compost with water and then introducing oxygen into the mixture.
Despite their potential, practical guidance for integrating compost teas into commercial market gardens and the potential benefits remains limited. The project is aiming to bridge that gap by refining recipes and protocols to make knowledge of Aerated Compost Teas production accessible and effective for both commercial growers and people at home.
Grower and Coop Director Jossie Ellis said: “This funding will enable us to advance our experiments using Aerated Compost Teas in the Market Garden, which will help to improve soil health, crop resilience, and sustainable food production.
“With this support, we hope to refine our methodologies, share findings with growers, and contribute to a more regenerative food system.”
Environmental artist Natalie Taylor has received £4500 for her Scran Fir Bees project to extend a series of existing public space artworks incorporating wildflowers to provide nectar-rich habitats and food sources for pollinators.
Her long-term vision is that these artworks, using large-scale text cut into the landscape, will join up to eventually form a bee corridor across the North of Edinburgh.
Natalie Taylor said:“I am so pleased to be able to work alongside local communities to design, develop and implement the new environmental artwork, sharing skills in meadow maintenance and strategic seeding to increase local biodiversity.
“Through fun, creative workshops, I will highlight the importance of our relationship with insect pollinators, which contribute vital services to roughly one-third of our food. I see this creative action for biodiversity as really important at the moment due to the ongoing crisis in pollinator populations, especially in urban environments such as Edinburgh where there are so many natural spaces where we can potentially help them.”
The Edinburgh projects are among 16 innovative community-led research projects across Scotland to receive funding from the RSE and the Williamson Trust.
A total of £73,625 has been given to a range of creative projects to foster healthy communities as part of the Healthy Planet, Healthy People awards.
Meanwhile, Earth in Common, based at Leith Community Croft, which includes a market garden, an orchard, and a community area shared by over 100 growers, has been awarded £5000.
The Croft is situated on Common Good land inspired by the Gaelic concept of dùthchas – the deep-rooted connection between people and the land.
They will use the funding to gather data on cultivated and wild plants and pollinators, which will help formulate strategies for biodiversity conservation and inform a guidance manual for urban green spaces across Scotland.
Evie Murray, CEO of Earth in Common, said: “This award will boost our mission to demonstrate that urban crofts, such as our model Leith Community Croft, can effectively address multiple societal and environmental issues. With its orchard, wild areas, market garden and unique system of group-shared food-growing plots, it has already been shown to foster great biodiversity.
“This will empower our ‘Crofters’ – local residents – to develop citizen-science skills to monitor and further increase biodiversity. This should benefit them as individuals and foster pride and engagement in land stewardship in densely populated Leith.
“We hope that the methodology we collectively develop will be widely shared and can have a significant positive impact on nature and people’s relationship with it across Scotland.”
This is the second year of the awards, generously funded by the Williamson Trust, a charitable organisation. The strength of the applications in the second round of the funding programme resulted in four additional projects being awarded financial support.
Professor David E Salt FRSE, Chair of the Williamson Trust, said: “This year, we again have an amazing diversity of projects, from dolphins, bees, seeds, orchards, woodlands and lochs to food banks, composting, urban crofts and coffee shops. We truly look to invest in hope and the power of ideas wherever they arise.
“The trustees at the Williamson Trust are excited to fund 16 great community-led projects from across Scotland.
“Applications to the Healthy Planet, Healthy People Community-led Research Awards continue to grow, demonstrating the strong desire of communities in Scotland to develop local solutions to the ongoing global challenges to our environment, our communities and our food.
“The Trust hopes that these locally focused projects can find solutions to the challenges the local communities face and that these solutions can also have wider application.”
RSE Vice President, Research, Professor Anne Anderson OBE FRSE, commented:“This marks the second round of RSE ‘Healthy Planet, Healthy People’: Community-led Research Awards, which were introduced to expand the Society’s range of awards and the type of research we support.
“The health of people and the environment are closely connected, and I hope that these awards will strengthen these innovative research groups and drive positive change in both areas. I look forward to following their progress and achievements over the coming year.”
Come and join us for a fascinating dive into mobile phone photography with artist and photographer @Linsdayperth.artchunks.
Learn how to lock the focus, work with depth of field, motion capture and more.
This workshop will have two parts.
First is the technical – we will look at the very powerful but easy-when-you-know-how cameras you have in your mobile phones. We’ll look at ways you can control these cameras, use light, frame and edit using apps that come with your mobile.
Secondly, we will look at light and how to work with light to take not only better photos and portraits but also ones that tell the story you want to tell with your images.
Monday 28th April
10-12.00
Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre, 67b Groathill Rd North
EASY walking inside and around Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre
We have two weeks of FREE Chi Gung sessions coming up! Wednesday 16th & 23rd April 11am-12pm come along and try out Chi Gung with Tamsin.
These two classes will focus on boosting our energy, becoming softer and more flexible, and transforming any internal or emotional difficulties using the smile.
We will perform them sitting (or standing if you feel strong enough), at a gentle pace and with an easy concentration.
Wildflower seeding on Saturday 12th April 2 – 4pm at the East Orchard with Drylaw Good Apples.
We will be planting Scottish nectar rich wildflowers and Yellow Rattle, a special flower which deters the growth of thick grass, and opens up the space for other flowers to take root.
Come along to create habitats and food sources for butterflies, bees, ladybirds, and all other insects.
Children especially welcome as Alia will be putting up the hammocks and whittling sticks as a children’s activity. Adults can help with the wildflower preparations.
Hot drinks provided. Free!
Sat 12th April
Time 2-4pm
Location: Easter Drylaw Avenue, down the wee lane between nos 6 and 8
School pupils at Ferryhill Primary School in Drylaw can now stand out from the crowd thanks to an eye-catching set of high-visibility vests provided by Artisan Real Estate and their development and construction partners.
Regeneration specialist Artisan, together with fund manager partner REInvest Asset Management S.A and contractor Metropolitan Demolition, are currently transforming the former Deutsche Bank House at 525 Ferry Road, Edinburgh into a spectacular homes-led development.
Now that demolition is currently underway, the developers are keen to work closely with the local community in advance of the home sales launch later this year. This includes helping out the local Ferryhill Primary school with the gift of ‘high-viz’ vests to enable the pupils to travel safely in and out of school.
“The schoolchildren are all delighted with their spanking new bright orange high visibility vests,” explains Eilidh Mitchell, Depute at Ferryhill Primary School.
“It means we can now safely plan for more trips away from the school, knowing that every pupil will be safe and be seen, whatever the weather conditions. It’s great to work in partnership with the developers who will be building just around the corner from us. And we look forward to continuing our relationship as the exciting new development comes to fruition.”
David Westwater, Artisan’s Regional Director for Scotland, David Westwater, says: “We had a great time giving the vests to the very well-behaved schoolchildren at Ferryhill Primary School, and we are pleased that our contribution will make life a little more interesting for everyone.
“As with any major development, it’s important to establish positive and close relations with our neighbours – and we look forward to many more opportunities to engage with more individuals, groups and organisations that work hard to make their local community so vibrant and so special.”
Michael Hirst, Director at Metropolitan Demolition, adds: “We are delighted to help out at Ferryhill Primary School. The demolition is progressing well at the Ferry Road site, and we subscribe to the highest levels of neighbour consultation and engagement throughout the process.
“Developing good relations with our neighbours is an important part of this.”
The demolition of Deutsche Bank House – near the Crewe Toll roundabout – is due to complete in the summer, with construction of a low-carbon residential community starting later this year.
Known as ‘525 Park View’, the new neighbourhood will provide 256 sustainable homes, 25% of which will be for affordable housing. Flexible commercial space facing on to Ferry Road will provide potential for cafes, shops and shared workspaces.
For more information, and to register interest in 525 Park View, visit: