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Council support crucial if the NEN is to be saved

The city council must act to save North Edinburgh News, NEN chairman Martin Hinds told charity walkers before they set out on Saturday’s NEN Walkathon. He said that the council must decide whether or not it supports community newspapers.

The previous Lib Dem/SNP coalition administration ‘disinvested’ in community newspapers in 2011 but there was hope that community newspapers would be relaunched under the new Labour/SNP administration elected in May last year. The Edinburgh Labour council election manifesto promised: ‘We’ll back the re-introduction of community newspapers to strengthen the community voice.’ 

Since then, however, there has been little obvious progress. The city council’s own Outlook newspaper has gone, but support for NEN has so far been limited to grants from local Neighbourhood Partnership Community Grants Fund.

Speaking before the walkers set off from Edinburgh College in Granton, NEN Chairman Martin Hinds (pictured above) thanked organisers and fundraisers for their efforts but went on: “As long as I’ve been on the Board funding has been an issue and it’s particularly difficult now. The reason for today’s event is both to raise money and to advertise the fact that NEN is struggling”.

He continued: “To ensure NEN’s survival we can’t go from one event to one event to raise funds to produce another edition – we need to have some stability and ensure that adequate funding is in place to make NEN sustainable. We have tried a lot of different things to raise money – and the response from local organisation was tremendous when we put out an appeal for advertising for our latest issue – but we now find ourselves in a position that we must pass this back to our elected members, three of whom are here this morning.

“It’s really a matter now for the council to decide whether they want to support community newspapers or not. It’s a sombre note to end on, but the fact that we are having to do this demonstrates that we are in some difficulty”.

Labour councillors Cammy Day, Lesley Hinds and Vicky Redpath all took part in the Walkathon.

Forth Neighbourhood Partnership convener Cammy Day (pictured below) responded: “All three councillors here support the NEN and there are other councillors in this part of the city who also support the NEN. I would encourage everyone here today to lobby your councillors. There is an opportunity for us to fund the NEN and community newspapers across the city – there is a £50,000 pot of money which has been potentially earmarked for some work around community newspapers and media work; other councillors will be lobbying for that money to go to other areas in the city, so I am urging local people to lobby their councillors in North Edinburgh and tell us that they want more money for the NEN.”

He concluded: “The NEN’s a fantastic paper, well-respected and the only newspaper that tells good news about North Edinburgh. The Board is struggling to keep things going but I am sure that with the support of the local community and local members we can make it happen, but we won’t be doing that alone. So thanks for coming along today to raise some money for the NEN, but this will be continued – it’s clearly very important that we get a chunk of that finance allocation.”

The next key date for North Edinburgh News is 13 August, when the Board meets to discuss the newspaper’s future.

NEN board member Ann Confrey was one of the main organisers of the Walkathon. Thanking the organisations who opened their doors to the walkers, she said yesterday:

“Many thanks for all your efforts on Saturday, your support and participation was very much appreciated. The walkers enjoyed the mini tours of your facilities and refreshments were gratefully received.