Granton – Page 136 – The NEN – North Edinburgh News

Carry on at your convenience!

Community ownership for public toilets?

Toilets at Granton Square and Canonmills will be among the first tranche of public convenience closures, it has been confirmed. The local public conveniences are among ten that will close over the summer, saving £300,000.

Ross McEwan, administrator of Granton Improvement Society, has called for the local public toilet to be acquired as a community asset.

It’s not a cr*p idea: in other areas across the country enterprising local communities have formed Trusts to save local assets – including public toilets.

One group in Devon successfully took over the running over their village toilets when faced with council closure. Not only did they save the facility, they upgraded it – with the help of Lottery funding, the villagers of Barbrook refurbished the toilets and added a community information room next door too!

During Edinburgh’s budget process in 2011, the Council agreed to reduce the budget of the Public Conveniences service by £300,000, a saving that was delayed until the 2015/2016 financial year.

Earlier this year an initial list of toilets proposed for closure was selected based on the number of people using the facilities, the conditions of the buildings, alternative facilities available in the local area and the potential for a Community Toilet Scheme.

Prior to final closure of these facilities, consultation has been undertaken with the wider community to establish views on the proposed closures and identify any steps that could be taken to lessen the effects of losing these facilities.

The results of this survey can be found here .

Following consideration of the feedback, the decision has been made to close the following toilets:

· Ardmillan – end of July 2015

· Canaan Lane – end of July 2015

· Canonmills – end of July 2015

· Currie – end of July 2015

· Granton Square – end of July 2015

· Joppa – end of August 2015

· Juniper Green – end of July 2015

· London Road – end of August 2015

· St John’s Road – end of August 2015

· Tollcross – end of August 2015.

Two other public conveniences have been spared – at least for now. The toilets at Hawes Pier and Middle Meadow Walk will not be closed at this time, while the options for these sites are reviewed.

To lessen the impact of the closures, the Council is establishing a Community Toilet Scheme with interested businesses across the city.

This would result in participating businesses allowing members of the public to use their toilet facilities without expecting them to make a purchase, in exchange for an annual payment from the Council.

A number of businesses have already expressed an interest in participating through the public toilets survey and some businesses in identified areas have also been approached with information about the Scheme.

A council spokesperson said: “The decision to close these toilets has been a difficult one and it is appreciated that there will be some impact following these closures. To help mitigate this, there have been over 60 additional toilet facilities identified in Council buildings around the city that are available for the public to use.

“These are located in various Libraries, Community Centres, Edinburgh Leisure facilities and Neighbourhood Offices; information about these toilet facilities is available here on the Council’s website.”

Nearly 20 public toilets will remain open.

If you would like to make an enquiry about public toilet closures, please call 0131 529 3030 or email public.toilets@edinburgh.gov.uk.

If you do choose to call the telephone number, be prepared for a lengthy wait … might be worth going for a pee before you call!

Students scoop awards for creative excellence

Four Edinburgh College design students have won commendations in the Young Creative Network (YCN) Student Awards, which celebrate creative excellence.

The students, who are all on the first year of the HND Visual Communication: Graphic Design, competed against students from around Europe and from second-year HND and degree courses.

The YCN Student Awards shine a light on emerging creative excellence from leading universities, colleges and art and design schools in Europe and North America. Students are given live creative briefs from a range of partnering organisations.

Liam Henderson and Aiste Piechaviciute won for their entry for the brief set by drinks brand J2O. They were asked to redesign J2O to become more appealing to adults, while bringing through the brand’s personality and communicating the key message that the juice is a blend of two fruit juices.

Liam and Aiste approached the brief by producing designs inspired by J2O’s play on the chemical formula H2O, under the title ‘the element of…’. So, orange and passionfruit juice became OgPa, and apple and mango ApMg, with the tag line ‘life is an experiment, so live it’.

Annabel Gibb and Kirsten Bell also received commendations for the submission for a brief from Topdeck travel. They were tasked with presenting the travel company’s trips to a UK audience, to make 18-30s consider trips they may not usually consider.

Annabel and Kirsten were inspired by the company’s tag line #livelikealocal, and produced designs for posters that juxtaposed photos of the usual tourist haunts, such as the Eiffel Tower and the Parthenon, with the side streets and cafes that mean more to locals. They also came up with a design concept for a Topdeck app, paired with crosses to be placed on the pavements outside local people’s favourite places as a play on ‘x marks the spot’.Helena Good, design lecturer at the college, said: “I am delighted with our students’ success in the YCN Awards. This is a real achievement, given that they were competing directly with final-year degree students. The professional quality of the work they have produced is testament to their skills and I look forward to watching them continue to develop through the second year of the course.”

The students’ work will feature in the YCN Student Annual, with 15,000 copies distributed across education and creative industries organisations internationally. They will be presented with their awards at a ceremony in London this September.

Mum, I’m bored …

We’re just one week into the school holidays – only SIX weeks to go! See below for a list of what’s available locally to keep your little darlings amused …

Summer Programme 2015 All in One

Letters: Living

Dear Editor

As an individual or a family member, having secure employment paying a decent living wage is a must for the majority of people. This does not mean that work is all that matters: interests, activities, leisure time and facilities add quality to life.

Playing fields, bowling greens, libraries, swimming pools, leisure centres, clubs, parks and gardens, seafront enjoyment or just walking in green spaces give that relaxing, good feeling we all need.

A local organisation, Granton Improvement Society, is engaged in adding to that quality of life in proposing a three-part scheme to reclaim unused land in the waterfront area of North Edinburgh. The land is currently held by the city of Edinburgh.

The scheme:

To create a Garden Festival in and around the historic walled garden in the heart of North Edinburgh for both citizens of Edinburgh and international visitors to enjoy.
To create an area facing the sea to further interest in painting, arts and crafts in general. A suitable working and storage complex will be created.
A complex of swimming pool, changing rooms and cafe with easy access to the beach.

Granton Improvement Society will seek funding from the Lottery Fund to realise this important project of regenrating derilict land into a valuable community-owned asset in North Edinburgh.

You can help by joining the Society. Membership forms and further information is available by email: info@grantonimprovementsociety.org

Website: https://grantonimprovementsociety.wordpress.org

Tony Delahoy

Home to roost!

Engineering apprentices bring mechanical gannet to life

Engineering apprentices from Edinburgh College dealt with an unusual animal rescue operation – they used their skills to bring a feathery robot back to life!

Daniel Dewar and Sean Devine worked with their lecturer Terry Healey to perform extensive repairs on the Scottish Seabird Centre’s mechanical gannet, which is on display at the Centre in North Berwick.

The Seabird Centre asked the students to repair its broken bird so it could head back into action and continue raising money for the charity and educating visitors.

The fabrication and welding apprentices used their skills to shape replacement parts and weld and braze them into place on the intricate bird structure.

Now fixed and back home at the Seabird Centre’s Discovery Centre, the gannet springs to life when a donation is made, making the distinctive gannet call, rotating to show the inner workings of its skeletal structure and revealing a metal fish struggling in its beak. It is ideally located close to the Centre’s interactive Bass Rock cameras, where visitors can zoom in on the real life gannets on the Bass Rock, the world’s largest Northern gannet colony.

Daniel and Sean are on the second year of a four-year modern apprenticeship in fabrication and welding. They visit the college’s Midlothian Campus in Dalkeith two days a week to receive training they can apply to their job roles at Scotia Security.

Daniel said: “This has been a great chance to put the skills we have learned through our course into practice. This was the first time we’ve done a job for somebody that will be seen outside the college, and you take a lot of pride in your work.”

Ross Milligan, the college’s curriculum manager for Engineering, said: “This was an exciting and unusual opportunity for our students to work with the Seabird Centre. The students and Terry have worked hard to refurbish, repair and get the mechanism working again, and now it is as good as it was when it first built. Our fabrication and welding students usually work on water tanks, spiral staircases, gates and railings, but projects like these give them a taste of the more unusual ways they could use these skills in the future.”

Tom Brock OBE, Chief Executive of the Scottish Seabird Centre, said: “It is brilliant to have our kinetic gannet sculpture back in operation. It has always been a very popular attraction. The Bass Rock has had a phenomenal year, being named the world’s largest Northern gannet colony and also BBC Countryfile Magazine’s Nature Reserve of the Year. To have our mechanical gannet back in the Centre is the ideal way to celebrate.

“We would like to say a huge thank you to Terry, Daniel and Sean for all their hard work. We are very grateful to Edinburgh College, and will look forward to collaborating with them on future projects.”

The gannet was originally designed by Jim Bond, an artist who specialises in kinetic sculpture, and was described by Terry as like something from TV’s Scrapheap Challenge, as the artist had welded die nuts into the skeletal structure, used a spoon in the working mechanism and used bolts to create the feet.

The bird has been entertaining visitors to the Scottish Seabird Centre since it opened in 2000 and is now back in its rightful home.

Granton Campus: proud to be green

Friday 3 July is Solar Independence Day

Edinburgh College will open the doors of Granton Campus on Friday to showcase its green credentials as part of Solar Independence Day celebrations.

Visitors can see the campus’ rooftop solar panel installation and find out how solar photovoltaics could work for them. While the open day is aimed at owners and managers of commercial premises, members of the public are welcome to come along and talk to clean energy experts from iPower Energy.

Social enterprise iPower Energy has organised the event in collaboration with the college’s Institute of Construction & Building Crafts as part of a national two day solar energy celebration led by the Solar Trade Association.

There will also be an optional tour on the college’s electric minibus to view the onsite electric vehicle charging point and visit the Forthside Training Centre, where construction students are taught the practical skills for their chosen trade.

The event will take place on Friday 3 July at Edinburgh College Granton Campus, 350 West Granton Road, Edinburgh, EH5 1QE, from 9.30am – 3.30pm. To book a visit, please contact Alistair Roberts, iPower Energy community renewables manager at alistair.roberts@ipoweruk.com

The solar panels at Granton Campus are just one aspect of Edinburgh College’s green credentials across its four campuses. Solar panels also feature at Midlothian Campus in a 5 acre solar meadow site with 2,560 solar panels, that generate the equivalent energy to take the campus off grid. The college runs and researches a fleet of electric vehicles, including cars, the minibus and an eco-travel buggy, which effectively save 6.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. The recently opened Elemis & Wella Hair and Beauty Academy at Granton Campus features a fuel cell and LED lights, which cut down the salon’s environmental impact while also reducing the running costs.

Alistair Roberts, Community Renewables Manager at iPower said “We are delighted to be collaborating with Edinburgh College and the STA to showcase solar PV on a commercial rooftop. There is so much potential in Scotland for rooftop solar to get energy bills down and cut carbon emissions, and a range of funding options available. It always helps to be able to see an operational installation.”

Paul Barwell, CEO of the Solar Trade Association, said: “These Solar Independence Day open days are a great way to showcase how versatile this technology is. We’ve got everything from a housing estate in Northumberland to a stately home in Aberdeenshire, a community solar farm in Hampshire to a waste facility in Berkshire, all generating clean, green, home-grown energy.”

Forth’s youth told: think BIG!

Think BIG. Think bold. Be creative. And there’s no such thing as a daft idea! That was the message to participants at an event held at Pilton Youth & Childrens Project last week – and the results of the day’s work will help to guide youth service provision across Forth Neighbourhood.

Organised by Forth Neighbourhood Partnership and Total Craigroyston, YouthTalk brought together young people from across Forth with community representatives and decision makers to discuss three key issues.

‘Positively Engaging Young People’ is one of Forth Neighbourhood Partnership’s main priorities and Convener Cllr Cammy Day explained to delegates: “We want young people’s views and aspirations to influence decisions that are taken locally and to listen to their suggestions about how things can be improved for them. We want them to have a real say in the future of this community and how it develops over the next ten or more years”.

A background report to aid discussion was prepared prior to the Youth Talk event. During the review young people across Forth were approached in schools, libraries, at youth groups, basically anywhere they assembled – and asked their opinions on the area. North Edinburgh Young Peoples Forum organised and conducted a survey in four local High Schools and the local Street Work team also gathered views: all told around 1400 young people gave their opinions on their local community -what they like, what they hate and what Forth needs to make it better for young people.

Assisted by motivational speaker Mike Stevenson from Thinktastic, Wednesday’s YouthTalk event saw young people and ‘seniors’ working together in small groups to discuss three ‘ideas’:

How do we involve more young people in positive activity?

How do we better promote the positive contribution our young people make in their community?

What should an ideal youth-friendly community look like – and how do we get there?

Once participants got into the swing of things, the conversation – and the ideas – began to flow. Some of the ideas generated – for example a common social media address for local youth groups to share information, and an annual celebration of young people’s achievements – proved very popular and could be acted on almost immediately. Others, however, may take longer – you did ask the young people to think BIG, Mike!

All of the ideas generated – big and small – will be recorded and a report of the YouthTalk event will be circulated in due course. It will make interesting reading!

And finally, thanks so much for the warm words and that round of applause for the NEN – it was really touching and much appreciated!

Care students cash in for cancer charity

Cold juice sells like hot cakes!

Edinburgh College lecturer Alan Laing set his Access to Care students a fundraising challenge: take this £20 and make a profit for charity. The seven students proved to be well up to the task and earlier this week presented Cancer Research UK with a cheque for £270!

Incredibly, the students raised the money in just four hours! Showing true entrepreneurial spirit, the students bought cakes, snacks and soft drinks at discount prices and sold them on to fellow students at a healthy profit. Lord Sugar himself would surely have been impressed!

The soft drinks in particular were an inspired idea – the day of the sale proved to be one of the hottest of the year so far and the juice ‘flew off the shelves’.

Enterprising students Sophie, Kerry-Anne, Jackie and Niamh are pictured with College Principal Annette Bruton, course lecturer Alan Laing and Cancer Research shop volunteer Elaine Lennon,who accepted the cheque on behalf of the charity.

Fellow fundrasing students Connor, Fraser and Lorraine couldn’t attend the cheque presentation – maybe away pitching an idea or making a few quid on a market stall somewhere!

Granton Toddlers Summer Fair’s on Saturday

Join Granton Toddlers for their Summer Fair at Granton Parish Church tomorrow. The fun kicks off at 10am.

Tonight’s the night for KABO boxers

It’s been a lot of hard work for everyone involved, but they’ve made it. Tonight’s the night for ‘The Jewel of the North’, KABO’s biggest ever boxing event.

Some seats are still available for the show at Edinburgh College Granton Campus: there’s one ringside table left at £20 per seat, and you can also pay on the door (£15).

Doors open at 6.30 and the action starts at 7pm

Seconds out …

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