Police Scotland have confirmed that a second man has been arrested and charged with attempted murder following an incident in West Pilton Place.
The 26-year-old is due to appear before Edinburgh Sheriff Court today.
His arrest comes a day after a 39-year-old man was also charged with attempted murder in connection with the same incident, which occurred on last Thursday (7 May).
Living Well North Edinburgh opens it’s doors this Friday
Living Well North Edinburgh (LWNE) is holding a rebrand launch event at their West Pilton Park home this Friday.
Join the LWNE team to celebrate the project’s brand new look – it’s a great opportunity to meet staff, volunteers and members and find out the wide range of services and activities on offer – and there’s food and refreshments too!
The fun kicks off from 12 noon – all welcome!
For further information call 343 6375.
Police Scotland have confirmed that a 39-year-old man has been arrested and charged with attempted murder following the incident that occurred last Thursday (7 May) in West Pilton Place.
Another man was stabbed in the incident which happened on the day of the general election.
The accused man was due to appear at Edinburgh Sheriff Court today.
Heartless thieves could cost local primary school £1000
Forthview Primary School’s shed was broken into over the weekend – and the school needs your help to trace stolen bikes.
Forthview’s Tracey Berry said: “Bikes that we had borrowed, so that Bill Stobie could teach bike ability to P6, have been stolen, along with footballs and gardening equipment. We are responsibile for the bikes: it will cost us about £1000 to replace the them! Our fundraising is meant to be for outings and activities for Forthview Children not replacing things that thoughtless people have stolen.”
Tracey added: “The bikes look like this (above). If you find one please hand it to the school – the more we find the less money we have to pay out from the school funds.”
Can you help?
Muirhouse Library and Shopping Centre will host an Employment and Learning Fair between 10.30am and 1.30pm this Thursday (14 May).
The event is aimed at both adult jobseekers and young people looking for advice and support to get into work or learning in North Edinburgh. Organisations attending the event will include employability providers from the local area as well as employers with vacancies to fill.
Community Renewal is one of the organisations involved in the jobs fair, and emplyment adviser Diana said: “Previous events have resulted in jobseekers securing interviews on the spot so jobseekers are advised to come prepared with CVs and dressed to impress!”
Who speaks for the community? What makes a good leader? What skills and qualities should a good community leader have? What support do you need to help make your community a better place to live?
These are some of the questions to be discussed over a coffee and biscuits at the Community Shop on Pennywell Road between 10am and 12 noon this morning.
The ‘conversation cafe’ is the latest in a series of informal consultation events taking place across Muirhouse and West Pilton over the coming weeks. Come along and have your say – the kettle’s on!
![Mark_Lazarowicz[1]](https://i0.wp.com/nen.press/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Mark_Lazarowicz1.jpg?ssl=1)
I would like to thank all those who gave me their support in the general election held on 7 May. I was proud of the way we took our message to every street in every part of Edinburgh North & Leith, and although we were unsuccessful, I am sure that the efforts of our team were one of the reasons why I received more votes in 2015 than in the 2010 election.
I have been extremely privileged to have been able to serve the people of Edinburgh North & Leith as their representative in Parliament since 2001, and I thank them for giving me that opportunity.
I congratulate the successful candidate Deidre Brock on her victory. Like all MPs, she can be contacted at the House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA, switchboard 0207 219 3000.
My constituency office will now close down, and as I am no longer an MP I will not be able to deal with any constituency work. However, Malcolm Chisholm MSP continues to have his constituency office at 5 Croall Place, Leith Walk and can be contacted for any Scottish Parliament matters in the Edinburgh Northern & Leith constituency.
Edinburgh excels in 2015 housing design awards shortlist
West Pilton Crescent is among five Edinburgh housing projects shortlisted as part of the 2015 Saltire Housing Design Awards, it was announced today. The social housing development, which was visited by then Housing Minister Margaret Burgess last November, has been nominated in the Multiple Housing Development category.
Recognising housing design excellence throughout Scotland, the Saltire Society’s prestigious awards represent a long-standing commitment to celebrate innovation and excellence in Scottish house building and place-making.
Represented across three of the five available award categories, the shortlisted Edinburgh projects are:
o 1 Rosefield Avenue Lane, Portobello, a refurbishment and extension project to create a desirable family home in the conservation area of Portobello; and
o 38 Ravelston Dykes (above), a modernisation project to upgrade the electrical and plumbing systems, making the house more energy efficient and fit for purpose in the 21st century
o West Pilton Crescent (top), a modern, energy efficient social housing development in a range of unit sizes; and
o Ellersly Road, Wallace Gardens, a high quality accommodation mix of townhouses and apartments that reflects the qualities of Edinburgh’s West Murrayfield Conservation area
o Murphy House, Hart Street, a contemporary new build within the World Heritage Site of the New Town.
The Multiple Housing Development category is particularly strong for 2015 with the Edinburgh projects facing competition from Glasgow projects, Phase 1A of the Glasgow Laurieston Transformation Regeneration Area and the Duke Street / High Street social and affordable housing development.
Also shortlisted in this category is the St Andrews West Burn Lane project, an innovative 14 unit development that had to overcome the challenge of presenting a contemporary housing solution within existing Medieval, Georgian and Victorian dwellings.
The two remaining categories are the Innovation in Housing Award, supported by the Scottish Government and new for 2015, the Landscape in Housing Award. All short-listed entries will receive a Saltire plaque marking their achievement.
The shortlists for all five award categories were announced by the Convenor of the Housing Awards panel, Jude Barber from Glasgow-based Collective Architecture, earlier today.
Those on the shortlist will now be subject to site visits by an expert judging panel consisting of architects, developers, academics, clients and tenants. The judging panel will then decide the winner of each category under the chairmanship of renowned Glasgow-based visual artist Toby Paterson.
The winners will be announced at a special ceremony on 22 June in the Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation, with winning projects automatically being considered for the Saltire Medal, which is accompanied by a separate cash prize of £1,500.
Past winners of this coveted accolade include North Gardner Street in Glasgow, the transformation of a semi derelict workshop and office building into a calm, private city house, designed by Cameron Webster Architects and the Artist Residence, in Perth by Fergus Purdie Architects.
Convener of the Saltire Society Housing Design Awards, Jude Barber from Collective Architecture said: “It is my great pleasure to announce the shortlist for the 2015 Saltire Society Housing Design Awards, with the standard of entries as ever being immeasurably high.
“The Housing Design Awards were established to recognise and celebrate Scottish architecture and I am greatly looking forward to the next stage of the process when the panel will have the opportunity to visit the shortlisted sites.”
Jim Tough, Executive Director of the Saltire Society said: ““The Housing Design Awards were the very first Awards scheme initiated by the society, and have been around longer than any other design awards in Scotland.
“Established in 1937, the Awards not only promote the importance of good design and housing for all, but have evolved to help to honour and encourage creativity, excellence and innovation in modern Scottish place-making.
“As we look forward to the forthcoming site visits, I wish all those shortlisted the very best of luck.”
The Community Leadership College is holding the first in a series of ‘conversation cafes’ at West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre this morning from 10am – 12 noon.
The greatest asset our community has is the people who live here, and the Community Leadership Cafe plans to build on the skills, knowledge and experience of our own residents to help build a better and stronger community for all.
Like to find out more? Call in for a chat at West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre today from 10am – 12 noon – it’s very informal and there’s free refreshments too!
If you can’t make it along this morning, don’t worry – a number of sessions are planned. Confirmed venues so far include:
Wednesday 6 May: Muirhouse Millennium Centre, 2 – 4pm
Thursday 14 May: Muirhouse Millennium Centre, 6 – 8pm
Monday 18 May: West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre, 4 – 6pm
Thursday 21 May: North Edinburgh Arts, 2 – 4pm
Monday 25 May: North Edinburgh Arts, 11am – 1m
Monday 1 June: West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre, 4 – 6pm
… and there will be more!
For further information call Kelly (0751 975 8526) or Dave (0751 975 8555) or email comlc2015@outlook.com
Local young people short-listed for learners award
Late last year I spent time with a bright and enthusiastic group of young adults at Royston Wardieburn Community Centre to plan a piece of work. Their mission? To choose a subject of relevance to young people, research and then write an article on that subject for North Edinburgh News.
The group has now produced their article (see below) – and all their hard work is to be recognised too!
Community Learning & Development tutor Karen Riddell, who supported the group during the project, explained: “They really were a vibrant group of young people with strong opinions and it was great to see them engage with the topic and undertake the various activities related to building their skills and putting the article together.
“The group was nominated for an Edinburgh Adult Learners Achievement Award and I’m delighted to say that they have been short-listed for an award in the Young Adults Category.”
The Tomorrow’s People team will learn their fate at an event at the City Chambers on 20 May. Fingers crossed for you, guys – and here’s your article …
LEGAL HIGHS: Is It Worth It?
Local young people speak out against ‘legal highs’
We are a group of young people from Pilton who have just spent 16 weeks on the Tomorrow’s People employability programme. Part of our course helped us brush up on our literacy and critical thinking skills through a weekly CLD Practical Journalism course held at Royston Wardieburn Community Centre.
Dave Pickering, the editor at the North Edinburgh News, very kindly gave us the opportunity to write an article for his paper, so after much debate we decided to research and write about Legal Highs.
We compiled a local survey and found out that most of the young people who responded to the survey had either used Legal Highs or knew someone who had. The main reasons cited were: they were easy to get, friends were trying them, they’re cheap – at least half the price of illegal drugs, they give you a really good high, taking them gives you something to do, boredom and peer pressure.
Even although a high percentage of young people surveyed had used them without any serious long term consequences, we did find out that at least 68 people died last year as a direct result of using them, so they are not quite as harmless as some people think.
We found that their name made them quite misleading and people thought it meant they were pretty safe to use. The truth is that drugs councilors now advise their clients to stick to their heroin as legal highs are even more dangerous, burning the skin as it is injected and causing blistering and serious infection.
Most people who completed the questionnaire had also tried illegal drugs and strongly felt that these were safer than Legal highs. As a group, we definitely agreed with that.
We also feel that the government are failing to make drug taking safer. No matter what you might feel about drugs, a lot of people from literally all walks of life use them and are going to continue to do so. David Cameron dodges the issue for fear of losing votes and insists that ‘What is in place is working’ despite the fact that over 2500 people died from drugs-related causes last year in the UK.
Is it not time to follow Portugal and make drugs a health issue rather than a criminal one so that people are offered more protection? In Portugal they found that de-criminalising it didn’t bring about any increase in the level of drug use by people and also that millions was saved on the essentially ineffectual enforcement of drug laws.
Across Europe clubs have drug-testing facilities so that people can test substances before they take them – surely that must offer people more protection than kidding on that ‘what is in place is working’!
A recent Home Office report that we looked at said that having tough drugs laws didn’t make any difference to the level of drug use but Home Secretary Teresa May had this part of the report removed and it was only found out about when Norman Baker revealed the findings after he resigned! This just goes to show that governments make useless drug laws to kid on they are in control of the problem when they’re really just doing it as a vote catcher.
Present policy bears no relation to the reality of people’s recreational drug use and it’s time for the government to introduce some new policies to protect its citizens and not put their own vote-catching first.
We need much better drug education to help us keep ourselves safe, and the obvious place for this to take place is in schools. We felt strongly that a peer to peer support programme in schools would help young people make informed choices about drug use and help keep them safer.
Our research found that young people felt there needed to be far more opportunities for young people in the work-place and much better affordable or subsidised recreational facilities to offer them the chance to experience other kinds of ‘legal highs’, their own ‘natural highs’ like ski-ing, skating, abseiling, snow-boarding, canoeing, dirt-biking, go-karting etc. Risk-taking is part of brain-development for young people and we need to offer them the opportunity to explore this in a safer environment.
Drugs become a problem when there is little else in the drug users lives. We found out that in an experiment, mice which were separated from other mice kept going back to drink the drug-laced water whereas mice that lived in groups didn’t. The experiment showed that lack of strong emotional bonds in your life can drive you to bond with legal highs or drugs instead.
They say it takes a community to bring up a child so that’s why it’s very important for us to work together to stop the reckless experimentation that can lead to addiction, to value the young people of Pilton and provide them with the support they need to keep their use of drugs and alcohol to an acceptable level and help them realise their potential.
It seems to us that one of the worst thing about legal highs is the hypocrisy of supposedly ‘respectable’ shop-keepers who are prepared to stock them in the full knowledge that people, especially young people, buy them to consume them. We feel a local campaign should be set up to stop these shops from selling them.
Good websites:
(1)Anyone’s Child; Families for Safer Drug Control – www.anyoneschild.org
(2) Release.org
