Repair education sits at the very heart of everything we do at Edinburgh Remakery. Because when we learn how to mend, we don’t just fix clothes or devices, we rebuild confidence, save money, reduce waste, and keep valuable skills alive in our communities.
That’s why we are so excited to share that our Textile Repair Cafes are back from 6th February.
A welcoming space where torn seams, broken zips and well-loved garments get a second chance and where people leave not just with repairs, but with new skills and a sense of pride.
We are grateful to The Erith Group for sponsoring our Repair Cafes, making it possible for us to resume our Textile Repair Cafes while keeping our Tech Repair Cafes going.
This support helps us grow repair education at the grassroots, empowering people with practical skills and keeping products in use for longer.
Because a circular economy isn’t built on throwaway culture, but on knowledge, care, and the confidence & skills to repair.
New support for workforce to improve learning opportunities
New support for social work education will be available from February, strengthening learning amongst the workforce and benefitting local social work students.
The Scottish Government is investing up to £600,000 through the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) to support the sector in addressing some of the reported challenges surrounding social work education.
The investment aims to strengthen the design and delivery of social work practice education – to ensure learning opportunities match the specific needs of social work students and help increase the number of high-quality learning opportunities across Scotland.
Minister for Children, Young People and The Promise Natalie Don-Innessaid:“The Scottish Government greatly values Scotland’s social workers, who do a tremendously valuable and essential job in communities across the country.
“That is why we are investing in the workforce, to enhance the experiences of the current and next generation of social workers and to address some of the reported challenges surrounding education.
“This investment demonstrates the value we place on improved professional learning support structures, recognising that a positive learning experience will both equip future social workers to develop and also support recruitment and retention.”
The funded improvements will be tested via Local Learning Partnerships (LLPs), a new model linking social work employers and education providers. This will allow areas to test curricula and make improvements based on the experiences and feedback.
SSSC Chief Executive Maree Allisonsaid: “We’re pleased to support LLPs, strengthening the partnership working between universities and employers, which is essential to social work education.
“The financial investment in LLPs will help local areas explore new ways of working, building on existing strengths, initially by increasing the number and variety of practice learning opportunities available to students and making them more local to reduce the distance students need to travel.
“The partnerships will make sure that students, social workers in practice, employers, people with lived experience and other partners are involved in developing effective social work training and learning which meets the needs of individuals and their communities.”
A female was arrested on 28th of January in Edinburgh city centre wanted on multiple warrants for theft shoplifting. Working in conjunction with Essential Edinburgh, CCTV and security officers in the city centre, the female was identified in a busy shopping area and arrested.
It was confirmed that she had committed a further two theft by shoplifting offences that morning. After appearing at court, she was remanded awaiting trial for 22 outstanding charges of theft by shoplifting for high value items.
In recent weeks, the Edinburgh #RetailCrimeTaskforce have arrested 29 persons for theft by shoplifting and charged them with over 350 offences.
We will continue to work in partnership with retailers and the public to target those choose to commit retail crime as it is #NotAVictimlessCrime.
If you have any information relating to retail crime or the resale of stolen property, please report this to the police or anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or online at https://orlo.uk/lZlFY
City councillors have made ‘significant progress’ towards a £41.1m capital investment package, over the next three years, for the City Operations and Infrastructure (COI) fund.
These proposals, discussed at a meeting on Thursday, are subject to final full Council approval, which will be debated on February 12.
The report outlines how part of the revenue from the Edinburgh Visitor Levy will be spent under COI across a wide range of projects and workstreams.
These include supporting capital borrowing for the George Street and First New Town project, developing a masterplan for Portobello Promenade, upgrading and replacing bins, accelerating our setted streets programme, alongside improving existing and providing new, more accessible public toilets.
Reports on the remaining Visitor Levy revenue spending will now be debated at executive committees throughout February:
• All Programmes: Finance and Resources Committee
• Destination and Visitor Management: Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work Committee
• Culture, Heritage and Events and specific elements of City Operations and Infrastructure: Culture & Communities Committee.
Commenting on Thursday’s decision, Transport and Environment Convener, Councillor Stephen Jenkinson said: “The Visitor Levy is a transformational development for the Capital, with today marking an important milestone in the process.
“Edinburgh is already one of the world’s premier visitor destinations, but this comes with a responsibility to properly manage the impacts tourism has on our residents whilst improving visitor experience.
“From short term measures such as increasing the amount of waste and cleansing patrols, alongside long-term strategic projects such as George Street and First New Town, the opportunities which the Visitor Levy could provide for our city cannot be understated.
“We’ve long debated the many things that we’d like to do as a city. We now have the chance to make these a reality, which is something that we should seize with both hands.”
Further Information on Visitor Levy:
After administration costs, which includes establishing and maintaining a contingency fund, a fixed amount has been assigned to:
Housing and Tourism Mitigation (£5m per annum)
Participatory Budgeting (£2m over three years); and
Reimbursement of 2% of remitted funds to Accommodation Providers, to offset the administrative cost incurred from operating in accordance with the Scheme and collecting visitor data.
The remaining funds are then split into the following investment streams:
On 5 February 2026, the award-winning sculpture park Jupiter Artland will reopen to launch a year of ambitious exhibitions and commissions that place landscape, power and identity at the centre of contemporary debate.
With artistic excellence and social purpose inseparable, the Spring and Summer programme brings together Scotland-based and international artists in a series of exhibitions, performances and events. Through Jupiter’s distinctive philanthropic model, where 100 percent of admission supports its Learning Foundation, every visitor directly contributes to creating opportunities for the next generation of artists and creative voices across Scotland.
From April, Extraction brings together work by Carol Rhodes, john gerrard, Marguerite Humeau, Siobhan McLaughlin and John Latham to explore how energy systems shape culture and land, set against Jupiter’s own layered history of shale oil, North Sea pipelines and on-site renewables.
For Edinburgh Art Festival 2026, Glasgow-based Irish artist Sgàire Wood presents a major solo exhibition in the Steadings Gallery and co-curates Jupiter Rising x EAF, transforming the park with a night of performance, music and spectacle.
EXTRACTION
11 April – 26 July, Ballroom & Steadings Galleries
Extraction is an exhibition exploring the cultural, psychological and environmental legacies of energy systems. It brings together works by Carol Rhodes, john gerrard, Marguerite Humeau, Siobhan McLaughlin and John Latham. Their practices are presented in dialogue with the unique landscape of Jupiter Artland, where the traces of three distinct energy eras exist simultaneously: the nineteenth-century shale oil industry, the twentieth-century North Sea petroleum economy and contemporary renewable infrastructure.
Rather than presenting energy history as linear progress, Extraction reveals a repetitive cycle built on belief, optimism and inevitability. Each energy era produces material wealth, cultural identity and technological confidence.
Each eventually becomes residue, memory or monument. Debates around energy transition are dominated by technological narratives and political urgency.
This exhibition instead investigates and reflects upon the emotional and ideological structure of energy systems, considering labour, identity and landscape without nostalgia or triumphalism.
After the erosion of energy systems, what remains is infrastructure, waste, altered land and symbolic fragments. Jupiter’s own landscape is also part of the exhibition – walking around the sculpture park, visitors can encounter views as they gaze in various directions out from the the artland; the historic shale bings – Scotland’s first oil industry – and the landing site for the Forties oil pipeline out to the North Sea, as well as the solar-field which powers Jupiter’s site.
Extraction is not a survey, commemoration or an environmental warning, but a lens offering clarity on how societies build and unbuild worlds through energy. It invites the viewer to recognise themselves inside a cycle rather than at its conclusion, to reconsider progress, permanence and the future.
john gerrard, Flare (Oceania), (2022). Simulation. Courtesy of the artist.
SGÀIRE WOOD
14 August – 18 October, Steadings Gallery (for Edinburgh Art Festival EAF26)
Jupiter Artland will present a solo exhibition of new work by Glasgow-based Irish artist and performer Sgàire Wood. With its origins in drag, fashion photography and multi-artform nightlife scenes, Wood’s practice is concerned with the layers of meaning behind everyday images, visual performances of identity, pop-cultural symbolism, authenticity and artifice.
Well-known for her humorous performance work combining dance, make-up and costume design, this show represents an exciting step for Wood into sculpture and immersive installation.
Sgàire Wood, Tiger (2024). Photo by Spit Turner
In this new body of work, Wood utilises traditional heraldic imagery to examine notions of heritage, belonging and the violence embedded in visual culture at large, specifically positioning urban wildlife as representations of the precarity and oppression faced by minorities amidst the rise of fascism.
Mythical heraldic creatures like the martlet – a footless bird purported to live its entire life in flight – symbolise a ceaseless struggle and sense of placelessness under our present political conditions of hostility and violence.
Wood critically questions the systems of belief historically associated with this visual culture and our current political urgencies, all while leaving room for humour, hope and the possibilities of belonging and solidarity.
Wood’s work has often been situated in nightlife spaces – she has performed at clubs, events, galleries and festivals across Europe, as well as co-founding the much-missed Glasgow queer club Bonjour.
This exhibition brings her multi-faceted practice into Jupiter’s Steadings Gallery, to create a poignant meditation on identity and inheritance.
Jupiter Rising x EAF
Saturday 22 August
Alongside this commission, Jupiter Rising x EAF returns on Saturday 22 August with Sgàire Wood as co-curator. Sgàiraoke, her hybrid of performance art and karaoke, has been a regular and much-loved feature of Jupiter Rising since the early days of the festival.
Expect the usual art-drenched chaos, late night dancing, music and stunning performance in the woodlands of Jupiter, all imbued with the glamour, allure and experiment at the core of Wood’s practice.
Full line up and pre-sale tickets to be shared in Spring 2026.
Currently on:
February 2026 at Jupiter offers a final chance to see Georg Wilson’s The Earth Exhales in the Ballroom Gallery, alongside workshops inspired by Georg’s work – exploring poetry, collaboration and seasonal change, tickets limited and available online.
Tai Shani’s The Spell or The Dream continues in the orchard through to autumn, evolving with light and the landscape.
To Love and To Cherish by Florence Peake in the Glasshouse, our transformative new commission, can also be experienced as part of private hire for weddings and special occasions throughout the year.
The permanent collection at Jupiter Artland which includes major works by Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley, Anya Gallaccio, Charles Jencks, Christian Boltanski, Cornelia Parker, Helen Chadwick, Joana Vasconcelos, Tracey Emin and others, remains on view throughout every season.
TODAY (Friday, 30 January), a body was found in the Gogar area of Edinburgh during searches for a missing woman.
The body has yet to be formally identified, however, the family of 60-year-old Alison Gibbens, who was reported missing from North Gyle Avenue around 10.30am on Monday, 26 January, has been informed.
A report has been submitted to the Procurator Fiscal.
Financial help available for people in Edinburgh paying for funerals during winter
People in Edinburgh who lose someone over the winter months are encouraged to apply for support to help with funeral costs.
Funeral Support Payment is delivered by Social Security Scotland and is available to people living in Scotland who receive certain benefits.
The payment can help cover some of the cost of a funeral and can be used towards funerals for a baby, child or adult. The payment also covers funerals for babies who are stillborn.
More than £66 million has been paid to over 33,000 bereaved people since Funeral Support Payment launched in 2019.
Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Shirley-Anne Somerville, said:“A bereavement is one of the hardest things a person can experience. On top of their grief, people often face the staggering costs of paying for the funeral.
“The average price for a funeral in the UK is now well over £4,000 – this is a cost many do not have the resources to pay for.
“Funeral Support Payment is there to ease some of the financial pressure for grieving individuals and reduce funeral poverty for people in Scotland. I urge people in Edinburgh to check their eligibility to receive Funeral Support Payment.”
To find out more information on Funeral Support Payment, visit:
People may be eligible for Funeral Support Payment if they meet all of the criteria below:
they live in Scotland
they or their partner are getting certain benefits or tax credits*
the person who died lived in the UK
the funeral is being held in the UK or in some circumstances in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland and anywhere in the world outside the UK in exceptional circumstances
they are applying after the person has died, until 6 months after the date of their funeral
they or their partner are responsible for the funeral costs
it is reasonable for them or their partner to accept responsibility for the funeral costs.
* Universal Credit (UC), Income Support, Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, Income related Employment and Support Allowance, Pension Credit, Housing Benefit.
ASH Scotland is urging high school teachers and youth workers in Edinburgh to use the health charity’s updated resource packs to inspire young people to make confident, informed decisions to protect their long-term health by not taking up smoking or vaping.
The Tobacco-free School and Youth packs, which each feature 30 engaging activities that can be used in lessons and group sessions, are being published by the health charity as the major public health issues of youth smoking and vaping are causing ongoing concern for teachers, parents and people working with children.
The packs provide facts and statistics covering a range of topics such as ‘Smoking and mental health’, ‘Smoking, vaping and peer pressure’, ‘Being confidently nicotine-free’ and features new exercises on nicotine pouches to support the delivery of personal and social education classes or for youth group activities across various subjects.
Sheila Duffy, Chief Executive for ASH Scotland, said: “As concerned teachers and youth workers across Scotland regularly contact us for information about tobacco and nicotine products such as vapes and pouches, we have produced updated resource packs with robust, evidence-based content to engage and empower young people in Edinburgh to make informed decisions about protecting their health and wellbeing.
“Our Tobacco-free School and Youth packs are especially designed to be effective learning aids to facilitate classwork and activities to help equip children to increase their knowledge about the health risks associated with smoking, vaping and using nicotine pouches.”
Warm Home Discount has been extended so millions of families will receive the £150 energy bill discount for the rest of the decade
Eligible households will receive the £150 Warm Home Discount every winter until 2030/2031
Families across Britain to benefit, with major reform to ensure more Scottish consumers get what they are entitled to automatically
News comes ahead of reduction to costs in April, when households will benefit from an average £150 of costs off energy bills
Millions of families will receive the Warm Home Discount for the rest of the decade, as the government today confirms the continuation of the scheme through to 2030/2031.
The extension will see eligible households provided with the £150 rebate on their energy bills every winter until 2030/2031.
This follows the government’s expansion of the Warm Home Discount last year, adding 2.7 million families to the scheme and bringing the total number of eligible households to around 6 million. This is on top of the average £150 of costs being taken off households’ energy bills from April, through measures announced at the Budget.
Hundreds of thousands of Scottish billpayers will also benefit from reforms to the way the Warm Home Discount is administered, with around 345,000 families in Scotland set to receive the £150 rebate automatically next winter – an increase of around 250,000.
The onus has for years been on many Scottish households to get in touch with their supplier to apply for the rebate. These changes will simplify the process for the majority of those eligible for the discount in Scotland, bringing the scheme closer into line with that in England and Wales – where most recipients already get the rebate automatically.
A small number of households need to provide extra information to ensure they get the discount this winter (2025/2026). If they have received a letter advising them to call the helpline, they must do so by 27 February 2026 – now less than one month away.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said: “Tackling the affordability crisis is the government’s number one priority.
“That is why we are today confirming to millions of eligible families across the country that they will receive the £150 Warm Home Discount every winter for the rest of the decade.
“That will give families much-needed peace of mind that they will continue to receive vital support in the cold winter months, as we take action to bring down bills for good.”
It comes after the government last week launched the £15 billion Warm Homes Plan, the biggest home upgrade plan in British history, to help millions of families cut their bills.
From April, households will also save an average £150 of costs on energy bills, with some consumers set to benefit significantly more – for example a high use electric storage heated household could save more than £400 on costs per year.
Ned Hammond, Deputy Director, Policy (Customers) at Energy UK said: “It’s very good news to see confirmation that the Warm Home Discount will be in place until the end of the decade which, particularly with the recent expansion, will provide continuing vital support with energy bills to millions of customers. The changes in Scotland are also very welcome as it will mean many more customers receiving the discount automatically without having to apply.
“We now look forward to working with the government on further changes to the scheme, including better targeting and tiered support, to ensure that is both directed to those most in need and provides the right level of assistance to really make a difference for customers struggling to afford bills.”
Matt Copeland, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at National Energy Action says: “The 5-year continuation of the Warm Home Discount is welcome news for low-income households and provides support that extends beyond this parliament. Alongside energy advice and wider support to help maximise people’s incomes, directly reducing energy bills can be a vital lifeline for vulnerable people who cannot keep their homes adequately warm.
“Six million households across Great Britain now receive the discount and the revised eligibility criteria give greater certainty about who will benefit each year. It is also essential that support is continuing for energy advice and for measures that reach people who are not within the benefits system.
“Without this, many households who cannot be identified through government data matching will remain without the help they need.”
