Our views on the Edinburgh Local Development Plan consultation

There once was a time when the plan for the regeneration of Leith Docks was illustrated with this picture. Well, it's looking increasingly unlikely that this plan will ever come to fruition. At the moment, Scottish Enterprise are busy spending £500,000 of tax payers money on a new masterplan for Leith Docks, which is almost entirely owned by Forth Ports.  

Simultaneously, the council is in the process of preparing a new Local Development Plan for the whole city.

This plan is important because it will set out the key land uses, and principles that will guide development over a number of years.

Both these processes have huge long term implications for Leith.

Recently, the consultation period on the plan's "Main Issues Report," came to and end. Greener Leith put in a submission. Here are some of the things we call on the council to do: 

• Protect the greenbelt whilst there is still plenty of 'brownfield' area left within the city.
• Adopt a 'minimum density' policy within the city to avoid sprawl and promote sustainable housing.
• Explicitly support national and local Government targets on promoting active travel.
• Adopt a favourable approach to community owned renewable energy schemes.  
• Preserve agricultural land close to the city on the basis that we might need it in the future if oil becomes significantly more expensive.
• Promote policies which favour the city centre as the best location for both office and retail developments.
• Prevent developers from providing their quota of affordable housing 'off-site,' as we think the current policy works and helps to produce mixed income communities.
• Take a more robust approach to conserving our built and natural heritage.
• Explicitly acknowledge and seek to expand active travel networks set out in the council's Active Travel plan. 

When it comes to Leith more specifically, the report asked people to choose between two options. We chose, like some other community groups, to reject both options as too extreme and dogmatic. Instead we called for a flexible approach to the regeneration of the docks that recognises:  

• Significantly increasing the amount of retail space around Ocean Terminal without building large numbers of new homes puts the vitality of Leith's existing town centres around Great Junctions Street and Leith Walk at risk. 
• Not all green industries are the same and not all industries which claim to be "green," actually are. Whilst we would welcome green jobs on the docks this must not be to the detriment of the existing inhabitants and local economy and therefore we suggest some factors the future plan should consider.
• Zoning large swathes of brownfield land soley for industrial use should be avoided as there is no guarantee that the hoped for manufacturing industries will in fact materialise. Depending on what happens to the economy, and indeed government subsidies for renewable energy, it may transpire that more jobs could be created over the lifetime of the next plan by doing something else. 
• There is still less green space per person in Leith than anywhere else in the city. New parks and allotments need to be created in the area.
• There are a number of current active planning applications that will see existing small light industrial premises converted into commercial offices and housing. We believe the future plan should aim to preserve the amount of light industrial capacity of the area in order to promote a diverse and resilient local economy.  

 You can find our full consultation response here, but you might also need to read it in conjuction with the Main Issues Report document to make sense of it. 

Zero Waste Podcast 10: Buy Less, Borrow Instead

In thirty years we consumed over one third of the earth’s natural resource space. Do we need to keep buying?

The people of Leith are sharing books, toys, cars and even fish tanks. Visit Casselbank Kids Toy Library, meet founder member of Greener Leith Ally Tibbit to find out about the online Leith Lending Circle and pop into the pub, Sofi’s bar to swap books and DVD’s. All this and more on our latest podcast: 

If you have iTunes installed on your computer you can subscribe to our audio as a podcast by clicking here. 

Casselbank Kids Toy Library

Here are some photos I took during my visit the toy library:

Casselbank Kids meet every Thursday morning from 9.30-11.30am at South Leith Baptist Church, 5a Casselbank Street (2nd right from the foot of Leith Walk). It cost £3 for family membership for the year and toys are 20p, 40p and 60p to borrow for a week. Call 07954 206908 for more information. 

The Leith Lending Circle

The Leith Lending Circle is a great way to share and borrow household items if you live in Leith. Read more about it on Greener Leith. This online lending circle includes insurance for valuable items and is provided by Ecomodo. 

Libraries and the City Car Club

You can visit your local library and borrow books for free, find out more on the Edinbrugh City Libraries Website or on the Tales of One City blog. The Edinburgh City Car Club was set up by Changeworks in 1999 with funding from the City of Edinburgh Council. This project has been so sucessful we now have car clubs throughout the UK.

The Bigger Picture

The next 'buy nothing day' is November 24, 2012. The challenge is to raise awareness of the issues behind our mass consumerism and think about how it's effecting the rest of the planet.

We've been tricked into thinking we need to keep consuming, manufacturers even design items to be obsolete after a couple of years. It started to boost our economy but it's not sustainable. For every bin of waste we put out for collection there are 70 bins of waste that were made just in the production of all the stuff you threw out! Find out about all of this and more in the eye opening, engaging short film the Story of Stuff:

 

With resources decreasing and population increasing sharing may be the best way forward.   

The Zero Waste Podcast series is produced by Emily Dodd for Greener Leith and funded by City of Edinburgh Council Waste Action Grants, Vegware and Changeworks. 

The theme tune for the podcast was brought to you by Waste Action Grant funded project, Trash Arts.

The Royal Yacht Britannia high and dry

Here's a rare chance to see parts of the Royal Yacht Britannia that most tourists will never see.

One of Leith's most high profile visitor attractions, the Royal Yacht Britannia, has spent most of January in the dry dock on the other side of Leith Docks from her usual home, getting her underside checked and repainted and ready for another stint at Ocean Terminal. 

Someone publishing under the name "Maggittooth," has posted this six minute video clip to YouTube of the boat's rarely seen underside.

Warning: The boat may be high and dry but as the clip is shot on a phone, it could still leave you feeling a bit sea sick. 

Social media used to share Maciej Ciania murder appeal translations

Lothian and Border Police have turned to social media in a bid to reach people who may have information about the murder of thirty four year old Maciej Ciania, who was discovered in his flat in Dickson Street by his flat mate at around 9am on Saturday 14th January.

The officers investigating the crime believe local people may hold the key information that could solve the case. As well as tweeting in three different Eastern European languages, the Police have also released this appeal for information in Polish on YouTube. More than 1100 people had listened to it at the time of writing.

Detective Chief Inspector Gary Flannigan said: "It is now one week since the murder of Maciej Ciania, and our investigation is making good progress.

"The response from members of the local community has been very encouraging and is supporting the police investigation.

" The answer to finding Mr Ciania's killer lies within the local community and I am making a direct appeal to anyone who has information or knows who is responsible to come forward immediately.

"For whatever reason that they may be reticent about speaking to police, I would like to reassure them that any information we receive will be treated in the strictest confidence.

"Mr Ciania's death has devastated his family in Poland, and left them without a son and a brother.

"If members of the community would prefer to speak to a Polish speaking officer or a translator these services are available."

Anyone with information is asked to contact Lothian and Borders Police on 0131 311 3131 or the charity Crimestoppers in complete confidence on 0800 555 111.

 You can find written translations of the Police appeal in Polish, Lithuanian and Russian here.

Give us this day...

We're delighted to publish this reflective guest post by local resident Colin Brown. 

Elegance and aggression showed in equal measure over the Water of Leith. Like balletic dancers, black headed gulls would stop, momentarily inert in mid air, the better to judge the value of pursuing their meagre goal, or to perfect their angle of attack.

Wings like tutus, some 60 birds formed graceful, interweaved and ever changing patterns in so small a space that collision seemed inevitable – yet was avoided, save for those who, 6, 8 or 10 at a time, plunged simultaneously for the same prey, landing in an angry cacophony of snapping bills, anticipating a hard won morsel.

The victor moved off sharply, trying to escape the outrage of those who seem to think they’ve been robbed.

The less successful birds surveyed the scene, turned about, leaving the crowd and regrouping, then rapidly re-entering centre stage with fresh determination, delighting, yet confusing the eye of a casual, human, audience.

Here and there a larger herring gull, from a small group of both adults and juveniles, eschewing elegance, made unsubtle but effective pre-emptive strikes, lunging forward before the smaller black-headed gulls (still sporting dark spots behind their eyes, not yet resplendent in their trademark chocolate brown heads) could satisfy their hunger.

On the water’s surface, slightly cowed by the frenetic activity both above their heads and in their midst, swam serenely the mallards, foraging, with surprisingly frequent success, for a small share of what food is on offer.

And in amongst them, the tufted brown head and low slung body of a goosander jerked nervously back and forth as though highly uncertain whether to brave the fray or not. She did, eventually, and emerged with a seemingly unmanageable crust at least the size of her head. With frustrated gulls nipping furiously at her tail feathers, she ran as if on pointe across the water’s surface until able to escape with her find in a more seemly manner.

On the path, behind the railings, close to the sad scar where a stand of small trees has met its end, a dozen or so pigeons, wholly unperturbed by the wheeling, flailing and screeching going on just feet – even inches – away, cooed gently as they hoovered up the crumbs scattered by one of the many Leithers who bring their crusts down to the water, and who set in motion this daily drama.

This is the second guest post by Colin Brown. If you liked this you can read his first one here. 

Thanks to the Comely Banking Crisis for sharing this image on Flickr

Graemac08 also posted this short video clip of birds on the Water of Leith this week: 

Leith Waterworld campaigners release film calling on locals to play politics

Leith Waterworld may have closed but the local campaign group has not given up. Hundreds of people have already viewed this video clip which was made by local resident Jon Pullman.

The man with the big brown hat in the video clip is Nick Gardner who is standing as a Labour candidate at the next election in the Leith Walk ward.

Readers of this blog will be interested to know that neither of his party colleagues who represent the area on the council, Angela Blacklock and Gordon Munro, have backed the Leith Waterworld campaign. Indeed, they actively voted against moves by another party at the last full council meeting that would have kept the pool open. 

Meanwhile, campaigners have lodged a formal complaint against two more local councillors, Lib Dem Councillor Marjorie Thomas who represents the Leith Ward and SNP councillor Deidre Brock who represents the Leith Walk ward.

Splashback campaigners alledge that the two councillors have a conflict of interest as they moved a motion at the same council meeting supporting the closure of Leith Waterworld, even though they both also sit on the board of Edinburgh Leisure. 

You can read more about the campaigners complaint on their blog. 

Meanwhile Waterworld campaigners have been perplexed to find that their Twitter account has been suspended. They still  have a Facebook page, on which they posted the following statement: 

"Innocent technical glitch or sinister attack on freedom of speech? The Splashback twitter account was suspended yesterday, shortly after mentioning a large supermarket chain and having the temerity to ask a question about the impact a large store may have on a local economy, in this case in Galashiels...We are appealing this, but in the meantime please keep in touch here on FB, or via the blog."

Greener Scotland campaign made in Leith but not by us

The Scottish Government launched a new "overarching national movement" today, to encourage people to behave in a more environmentally friendly way. It was put together with help from local firm, the Leith agency, who made the video above.

The new campaign also has a new website that might suggest to the unsuspecting passerby that it's run by a voluntary organisation due to the domain name they've chosen: www.greenerscotland.org

Leithers may be forgiven for thinking that Greener Leith (est. 1996) has suddenly developed ambitions to cover the whole of Scotland. Or that the we've joined forces with other independent community groups, like Greener Kirkaldy and Greener Hawick to play a part in this "overarching national movement."

That ain't the case - as we have enough on our hands in our own neighbourhood. That said we're pretty sure all these groups, including us, would support the new marketing campaigns key message and the more positive way they've gone about delivering it.

Anyway, according to the Drum, this is what Pauline Lamb, senior strategic marketing manager at the Scottish Government, said they aim to do at Greener Scotland:

“The Overarching Greener campaign encourages us all to work together to make a difference to create a cleaner, Greener Scotland.

“By delivering an integrated consumer campaign and working with key stakeholders, partners and agencies - we can encourage the nation to assess their own green credentials and ultimately get on board with making Scotland a greener, cleaner place to live”.

If you're a marketing professional who knows an integrated consumer campaign when you see one, then you may be interested in this earlier post where we had a look at some environmental campaign ads that people have made in the past.

Warning: in the old days government sponsored advertising agencies often made animals die, or inanimate objects talk, in a way designed to make you feel guilty and afraid. That earlier post features some of these disturbing film clips.

What's good about this new campaign: It's positive, focusses on the benefits of collective action, and seeks a longer term and better quality engagement with people than some previous campaigns.

What they could do better: The campaign is still ultimately reliant on other generic sources of government information. 

Even though the Scottish Government has funded loads of local groups to take action all over Scotland through the likes of the Climate Challenge Fund there is little mention of these local groups on the website.

Some of the work they have undertaken is amazing, and arguably far more relevent to people in their local area. Yet, there is no linkage from the government. Why not?

Why can't the website direct people from Fife to local information - to the Fife Diet for example? Or people from Edinburgh to our Zero Waste podcasts? Local groups all over Scotland have put together some amazing resources - usually with funding from the government. It's a shame that these are not promoted. 

What would make a huge difference: In some policy areas, the Scottish Government is pursing policies that do the opposite of promoting a Greener Scotland. Like, cutting the budget for active travel by 33%, whilst increasing spending on trunk roads. You can read more about this on the Transform Scotland website.

After all the Government's own research from as far back as 2010 shows that successful behaviour change campaigns must be backed up by consistent, credible action from those at the top.

Leith cycle commuter asks council to improve Quilts cut through

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Yesterday, a local cyclist shared a letter she'd sent to the council with Greener Leith. We publish it below and have lent our support to this fairly straightforwards ask.

Having seen on the Greener Leith blog that you recently were able to get the bit of path from West Bowling Green Street to the north Edinburgh path beside the Water of Leith tarmaced to improve access (it's made a big difference to my commute as I can now go this way in all weathers, staying off Great Junction St and Ferry Road), I wonder if you'd be able to work a bit of magic on the access / cut through from The Quilts to West Bowling Green Street Link to Google Map street view of the bit I'm talking about: http://g.co/maps/qxgu8 (I hope it's pointing the right way)

At the moment, there's no dropped kerb access on the Quilts side, meaning that the barrier across the road is very effective at making it difficult to cycle through (it's on my cycle route to work).

I manage to squeeze through on the right hand side, where a bollard has been cut down, but I frequently bash my pedals, and if there is a car parked on the Quilts side, it's very difficult to get through. Not only that, but the far side of the barrier is very overgrown with grass/weeds, and it collects litter and dog mess, making it unpleasant and difficult to cycle through.

I appreciate that the purpose of the barrier is probably to prevent motorcycles using it as a cut-through, but the downside is that cyclists, wheelchair users and people pushing pushchairs have a much more difficult time getting past.

It's particularly trepidatious in cold weather, when cobbles can turn slippy / icy very quickly. Installing a dropped kerb, or perhaps just putting a small "ramp" of tarmac to smooth off the kerb on either side, would be really great. Any chance?

[Name and address withheld]