Do you enjoy spending time at the beach or in the water? We want to hear from you!
We’re looking for your thoughts on bathing waters and how you find out about water quality.
We’ve worked with Scotinform to create a short survey, it takes just 5 to 10 minutes to fill out and you’ll also have a chance to win a £50 voucher!
Your feedback is valuable, share your thoughts at:
Detectives investigating a series of wilful fire-raisings in Glasgow and the West have visited more than 100 properties as part of extensive door-to-door enquiries and seized almost 700 hours of CCTV footage.
Intelligence is also being gathered, with one stolen vehicle been recovered so far.
A dedicated team of officers are being supported by specialist resources as enquiries continue.
One week on from the first incident, officers are appealing for information after a house was deliberately set on fire in Cortmalaw Gardens, Glasgow on Thursday, 3 April, 2025.
Extensive enquiries are also ongoing into wilful fire-raisings at four other properties across the city.
• Premises in Milton Road, Kirkintilloch on Friday, 4 April, 2025
• Properties in Gala Street and Ashgill Road, Glasgow on Monday, 7 April, 2025
• Property in Meadow Court, Stepps, on Monday, 7 April, 2025
• Premises in Wellington Road, Bishopbriggs on Tuesday, 8 April, 2025
A team of detectives are investigating these incidents and a number of reports of discharges of firearms and fire-raising in the East of the country, which are all being treated as potentially linked at this time.
Detective Chief Superintendent David Ferry, Specialist Crime Division, said: “It is vital that we trace whoever is responsible for these reckless acts as soon as possible.
“While we believe these to be targeted attacks, the consequences could have been far more serious and I want to make it clear this behaviour will not be tolerated.
“I would urge anyone with information about any of these incidents to please get in touch.
“We would also be keen to speak to anyone with dash-cam, doorbell footage or personal footage, from the areas where these incidents have taken place.
“Significant enquiries are ongoing in relation to all of these incidents, and we are utilising all available resources to identify those responsible and bring them to justice.”
A number of arrests have been made in the East and a number of warrants have been executed in the city.
On Thursday, 10 April, 2025, an 18-year-old man and a 17-year-old male youth were arrested in connection with wilful fire-raisings in Edinburgh.
The 18-year-old man was arrested and charged in connection with an incident which took place in Hay Drive on Friday, 4 April, 2024, a wilful fire at a premises in Albert Street on Thursday, 6 March, 2025 and the wilful fire of a vehicle in the Parrotshot area on Sunday, 2 March, 2025.
He is due to appear at Edinburgh Sheriff Court today, Friday, 11 April, 2025.
The 17-year-old male youth has been released pending further enquiries.
A number of items relevant to the investigation, including weapons, have been seized, along with drugs and cash during the execution of warrants in the past few weeks.
Detective Chief Superintendent Ferry added: “A number of arrests have already been made in connection with incidents in the East and arrests will continue across the country over the coming weeks.
“I want to reassure the communities in the East and West of Scotland that we have a team of detectives working on this investigation and our continued action in recent weeks demonstrates our commitment to tackling this type of crime.
“We will continue to carry out additional high-visibility patrols and disruption activity and I would encourage anyone with any concerns to approach these officers, so we can take action.
“If anyone has information that can help with our enquiries then please contact us immediately.”
Anyone with information is asked to contact Police Scotland via 101 quoting incident number 0562 of Friday, 21 March, 2025.
Alternatively, you can call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 where information can be given anonymously.
COMMUNITY RENEWAL – NEW WALKING GROUP
We have a new Futsal class for players aged 9 – 12yrs starting after the Easter Break.
Indoors at Craigroyston Community High School on Thursdays from 4.30 – 5.30pm
Book online at https://scf.classforkids.io or contact Paul for more information: footballdd@spartanscf.com
On display for the first time in more than 30 years, Queen Alexandra’s magnificent gold coronation dress is among more than 300 works from the Royal Collection that go on show at The King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace from today (Friday, 11 April) in the new exhibition The Edwardians: Age of Elegance.
The exhibition explores the lavish lives and tastes of two of Britain’s most fashionable royal couples – King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, and King George V and Queen Mary – during a period of great opulence and profound change, as Europe edged ever closer towards war and Britain stood poised on the brink of the modern age.
Visitors will be immersed in the glamour and drama of the Edwardian era, with the exhibition’s free multimedia guide narrated by Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville.
After Queen Victoria’s 40 years of mourning, the coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra was designed to be a public spectacle, heralding a glamorous new era for the royal family. Just three days before the ceremony, Edward required emergency surgery for appendicitis, delaying the event for six weeks.
When the coronation finally took place on 9 August 1902, it became one of the most sumptuous royal events in British history. The exhibition reunites for the first time an array of items commissioned and worn by the royal couple for the occasion.
Traditionally, a coronation dress would be a plain white or cream gown, inspired by ecclesiastical robes. However, Alexandra was a fashion trailblazer, known around the world for her style.
She chose a dramatic gold dress designed by the female-led Parisian fashion house Morin Blossier, sewn with thousands of tiny gold spangles designed to sparkle in the electric lights that had been installed in Westminster Abbey for the first time in honour of the occasion.
At Alexandra’s suggestion, the coronation dress became the first royal outfit to include the national emblems of Britain (rose, thistle and shamrock), a tradition continued on every subsequent coronation dress, including those of Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Camilla.
Forty needle-workers in Delhi spent five months embroidering the gown’s gold net, before it was sent to Paris to be laid over cloth of gold and made into the final gown. The rarely displayed dress is very fragile, and conservators have spent more than 100 hours preparing it for display.
Exhibition curator Kathryn Jones said: ‘While it has darkened over time, Alexandra’s choice of a shimmering gold fabric would have been incredibly striking at the coronation; there are descriptions in contemporary newspapers of moments in the ceremony where the Queen appears in an extraordinary blaze of golden light, the dress glowing in the new electric lighting.
“It’s a powerful example of Edward and Alexandra’s attempts to balance tradition and modernity as they stood on the cusp of the 20th century: a shining moment of glamour before the world was at war.’
Alexandra draped herself in jewels and pearls for the coronation, including a diamond necklace and earrings that were a wedding gift from Edward, on show for the first time, and the Dagmar necklace, a wedding gift from the King of Denmark. Also on display is her ostrich feather fan, its handle set with a diamond crown, an ‘A’ and the national emblems.
Alongside Alexandra’s ensemble, visitors will see Edward’s cloth-of-gold coronation mantle, the thrones commissioned for the occasion, and Edward and Alexandra’s state portraits by Sir Samuel Luke Fildes, measuring more than three metres high. Just like the dress, the thrones represented a break with royal tradition, having been commissioned from a French firm rather than British, reflecting Edward’s interest in French design.
On show for the first time is Alexandra’s copy of Sir Edward Elgar’s Coronation Ode for King Edward VII, acquired and signed by the Queen in 1902. It was the King who suggested to Elgar that words could be added to a section of his first Pomp and Circumstance March in honour of the coronation; he admired the tune and thought that it would make a good song. The resulting piece is known today as Land of Hope and Glory.
The Danish artist Laurits Tuxen was appointed as Alexandra’s ‘Special Artist to the Coronation’. On public display for the first time in over a century, his painting of the new Queen kneeling for the anointing captures both the magnificence and solemnity of the moment.
The exhibition features a further four paintings by Tuxen, including a never-before-seen depiction of the marriage of George and Mary in the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace. Over her customary black mourning clothes, George’s grandmother Queen Victoria can be seen wearing the white lace from her own wedding dress, worn in the same chapel 50 years earlier.
The Kokoshnik Tiara, which George’s mother Alexandra wears in the painting, is also on display.
The two royal couples surrounded themselves with fashionable society figures, their lives a whirlwind of garden parties, concerts and costume balls.
Visitors will see mementos from these events, ranging from a ‘Mary, Queen of Scots’ costume worn by Alexandra to a fancy-dress ball in 1871, to a pair of Tiffany & Co gold opera glasses studded with diamonds and pearls.
Meanwhile, large-scale portraits by the most fashionable society painters of the day, including Philip de László and John Singer Sargent, capture the era’s spectacular fashions.
As well as magnificent royal occasions, the exhibition explores the couples’ domestic lives. Displays evoke the cluttered interiors of their private residences, where decorative objects and photographs covered every surface.
Highlights include family snapshots taken by Alexandra on one of the earliest Kodak cameras, and pieces from the group of Fabergé animal sculptures commissioned by Edward in 1907: the single most important contribution to the royal collection of Fabergé and the largest order ever placed through the firm’s London branch.
All four figures collected works by the great contemporary artists of the period. Highlights from their private art collections include two luminous Frederic Leighton portraits, one of which was the first painting acquired by Edward aged just 17; Sir Edward Burne-Jones’s Study for a Head of Sleeping Beauty, displayed for the first time; a copy of Oscar Wilde’s Poems, on public display for the first time and featuring a rare hand-written message from the author; and Charles Baugniet’s atmospheric painting ‘After the Ball’, on view for the first time in over a century, which captures the elegance and exuberance of the era, with a society beauty asleep in her ballgown, having danced all night.
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
Activity: wildflower seeding
KEEP Scotland Beautiful have been awarded more than £900,000 by The National Lottery Heritage Fund to support communities across Scotland to explore, record, protect and celebrate their heritage and plan for future impacts, including climate change, through Our Heritage, Our Future.
Communities provide vital support and ongoing care and protection of our local historic buildings, monuments, places and traditions. Through community action planning and skills development, Our Heritage, Our Future aims to expand the audience engaging with our historic environment, support community awareness and understanding of the threats facing our heritage and inspire action.
Working closely with local organisations, we are establishing local heritage hubs across the country as a base for engagement activities guiding communities to identify the heritage that matters to them and how it could be looked after in the years to come.
Katie O’Donnell, our Communities Manager, said: “The £962,750 grant provided by The National Lottery Heritage Fund is key to driving forward work to inspire community heritage and climate action, and widening engagement with heritage across the country.
“The Our Heritage, Our Future project team can work with your community to help to develop a range of heritage skills such as creating guided tours, planning a pop-up museum, carrying out historical research and recording the historic environment. Through these activities you can work towards obtaining a formal qualification or take part just for fun – so we’d love to hear from you if you want to get involved!
“Through the project, local communities can not only celebrate and protect their past, but they can also recognise the value of their historic assets today, including opportunities for job creation, carbon reduction, energy and waste minimisation, improved mental wellbeing, and creating community cohesion and pride of place.”
In 2023 a Heritage Fund Development Phase grant of £198,165, alongside funding from Historic Environment Scotland, enabled us to lead community heritage engagement activity with a total of eight communities across Scotland including community heritage climate action planning, training in delivering guided tours, and developing a new Heritage topic for Eco-Schools Scotland.
These activities have formed the blueprint for the newly awarded Delivery Phase funding, with ongoing financial support from Historic Environment Scotland.
Caroline Clark, The National Lottery Heritage Fund Director for Scotland, said: “We are delighted that thanks to National Lottery players we are supporting Our Heritage, Our Future to be delivered in communities throughout Scotland.
“With our significant support Keep Scotland Beautiful will help people work together to identify and understand the risks facing their local heritage. It will deliver lasting impact equipping communities with the knowledge and skills to care for and share that heritage.”
Find out more about Our Heritage, Our Future and how to get involved.
Our Heritage, Our Future has been made possible with support from Historic Environment Scotland and The National Lottery Heritage Fund, with thanks to National Lottery Players.
The project supports the ambitions of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, with a focus on Quality Education, Gender Equality and Sustainable Cities and Communities.
The funding will support communities across Scotland to explore, record, protect and celebrate their heritage and plan for future impacts, including climate change.
Read more and find out how we can support you:
RISE IN COST OF UK PASSPORTS
The government introduced new fees for passport applications yesterday (10 April 2025).
The proposals, which are subject to approval by Parliament, will include the following:
The new fees will help the Home Office to continue to move towards a system that meets its costs through those who use it, reducing reliance on funding from general taxation. The government does not make any profit from the cost of passport applications.
The fees contribute to the cost of processing passport applications, consular support overseas, including for lost or stolen passports, and the cost of processing British citizens at UK borders.
Customers are advised that they should apply in good time before travelling.
In 2024, where no further information was required, 99.7% of standard applications from the UK were processed within 3 weeks.
Passport fees are reviewed in line with HM Treasury guidance.
Do you know the incredible ways that movement can help with stress?
Movement has physical and psychological effects on our bodies that relieve present pressure and helps prevent stress.
But, it’s often when we’re most stressed that motivation to find time for physical activity suffers. We may not think we have time, or we may feel too exhausted to plan any physical activity.
But, the stress-relieving effects of movement are so great, that even small moments of movement can have an effect. Going on a walk, doing housework or gardening all count. If you’re struggling to find the time and motivation look for these everyday tasks or find small moments in your day. A five-minute stretching session could boost your mood and improve your focus and motivation.
Why not set aside a few minutes today for an activity you enjoy? See if you can find time for it over the coming days and weeks if stress starts to set in.
Children First has published a new report showing the positive impact the charity has made on the lives of thousands of children and families across Scotland.
The report reveals that the Children First support line, which offers practical, emotional and financial help to any family in Scotland, put almost £2.5 million back into the pockets of struggling families in 2024 by securing benefits they were entitled to.
Scotland’s national children’s charity also helped families to deal with debts totalling more than half a million pounds and make them more manageable.
From advice on mental health, money worries and online harm, to struggles at school, Children First’s support line gave expert help and advice to more than 2,500 families and supported over 9,400 people in 2024.
More than 1,000 of those families received financial wellbeing support and advice that helped keep children warm, well and fed.
Mary Glasgow, chief executive of Children First said: “Scotland is in the grip of a childhood emergency with around one in four children living in poverty.
“Poverty has a devastating impact on children’s development, physical and mental health, education and futures that can last into adulthood.
“We are calling on the government to act now to invest in targeted financial advice and support, early help for families and to increase the Scottish Child Payment which is the most effective way to alleviate poverty. Children can’t wait.”
The charity’s impact report also found that more than two thirds of families who reached out for help were worried about their child’s emotional wellbeing and half were concerned about family relationships.
Mary Glasgow added: “Every day our team hears from more and more families in distress and under huge pressure.
“For many, our support is a lifeline to them. But we can’t continue to be there for children and when they need us without your help.
“Please donate today at www.childrenfirst.org.uk.”
In 2024 across Scotland Children First supported more than 8,600 children and over 8,800 parents and carers to have a brighter future through its local services and national support line. In total 17,493 people were supported.
Mum Priya shared: “Thank you so much. I am in tears writing this. I will never be able to thank you enough. I’ve felt shame in asking for help and this year has been the hardest in forever, but Children First has restored the hope I have in this world.”
Mum Sarah, whose son Arthur has a disability was supported to apply for Child Disability Payment said: “Children First helped us apply for Scottish Child Payment which I didn’t know existed. This extra amount will definitely help us with food and electric bills each month.”
Dad James said: “Just knowing we have that extra money coming in is such a weight off our shoulders. We are now not reliant on food banks or family members.”
The Children First support line helps families across Scotland with whatever challenges they face. Families can call the team for free on 08000 28 22 33 or visit www.childrenfirst.org.uk to start a web chat from 9am – 9pm, Monday to Friday or 9am – 12 noon Saturday and Sunday.
