Children and their families are tucking into a feast of free cookery classes at venues across the city this summer as part of a programme of activities to help families during the school holidays. Continue reading Family cooking lessons spice up the school holidays
Nearly 46,000 garden waste bins have been registered for the next service year, with just a fortnight left in the registration period.
The garden waste service is a £25-per-year bin collection service, offering fortnightly collections throughout the year, with a short break over Christmas to help manage higher tonnages of household recycling and residual waste at that time of year. The annual fee works out at just under 50p per week. Continue reading Register for garden waste collections
The People’s Story at 30: The Making of the Museum
It’s been 30 years since The People’s Story Museum opened its doors for the first time, becoming one of the UK’s leading social history museums. Radical and ground breaking at the time, it was concerned with the lives and times of the ‘ordinary’ people of Edinburgh; the real people whose lives played out in this historical city. Continue reading Thirty Years of The People’s Story
CityFibre delivers digital workshops in partnership with Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society’s ‘Fringe Days Out’ scheme
People of all ages from across the Capital have learned the essentials of the modern digital world and how to stay safe online – thanks to CityFibre’s partnership with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society. Continue reading CityFibre drives digital inclusion to top of agenda
City Council responds to Government consultation
The City of Edinburgh Council has published its response to the Scottish Government consultation on the regulation of short-term lets in Scotland. The consultation closes on MONDAY.
Continue reading Time’s running out to have your say on short-term lets
The Council is working on getting the balance right, says city council Leader Adam McVey:
Together the festivals create a season and a place like no other, with the cultural benefits giving us access to performers and shows that we’d otherwise have to travel the world to find. Continue reading Managing a Festival City
Thirty-four Edinburgh parks and greenspaces have been recognised as among the best in Scotland by Keep Scotland Beautiful.
The Council has launched a new campaign to combat the problem of inconsiderately-parked vehicles blocking bins meaning they can’t be emptied and overflow.
Continue reading Sin bin for bad parking to help keep Edinburgh clean
“Fresh thinking is turning Edinburgh into a Sustainable Food City”
Bustling, vibrant market gardens in all four corners of the Capital are helping fuel and nourish our population – especially our children and older people – with perfectly fresh, locally grown seasonal produce (writes the city council’s Sustainability Champion, Forth Cllr George Gordon). Continue reading Food for Thought from Edinburgh’s Sustainabilty Champion
It’s a busy summer across the Council’s estate, explains Finance and Resources Convener Cllr Alasdair Rankin:
Edinburgh trades weeks at the start of July is traditionally when many companies literally down tools for the summer holidays – but that’s not the case for our Council estate where building improvements are taking place across the city.
This is very much an all year round operation and our programme of works is significantly larger as a direct result of the decisions we’ve taken as an Administration to invest £119m in the Council estate.
Despite the challenging financial times for the Council this significant investment is a clear sign of our determination to improve the quality, safety and future sustainability of our buildings.
Although the focus in the first two years has been around our schools, our five-year programme includes improvement and maintenance works across the whole estate extending to areas like care homes and office buildings. This year work is planned at Portobello Swim Centre (above), which is managed by Edinburgh Leisure, and the historic City Chambers.
A huge amount of planning has taken place to enable such a wide programme of works to go ahead – this is our most extensive programme ever carried out over summer with almost 100 schools and nurseries being targeted. Works taking place range from general maintenance through to major refurbishment including painting and decorating, major roof repairs, window replacement programmes and lighting, heating and boiler upgrades.
For some schools these summer works mark the start of a major programme to address backlog maintenance requirements identified through our extensive condition surveys carried out across the whole of our estate.
Over 30 of these projects will deliver major improvements and in many cases this work will continue throughout the school year including at evenings and weekends.
For other schools this will be the final phase of works, and our Property and Facilities Management professionals will be working hard with our contractors to ensure that the works in these schools are completed in time for the pupils and staff returning after the summer break.
In addition to these improvements, we are providing additional classrooms to meet our rising school rolls across the City and work will commence on five new nurseries which will open their doors in August 2020 to support us in meeting the extended hours nursery provision for all three and four-year olds.
We are making significant progress with improving our whole estate and I firmly believe this proactive approach, along with further targeted investment, will ensure our buildings are fit for purpose both now and for years to come.
This article first appeared in Edinburgh Evening News
