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E-Newsletter | Spring 2021

Scottish Parliament elections 2021

We’re holding a hustings!

Come along to our hustings to meet the candidates who are hoping to be elected as Member of Scottish Parliament for Edinburgh Northern and Leith.

Seafield: Connecting Coastal Communities

Leith Links Community Council have continued to work with the community councils of Newhaven and Harbour, Craigentinny, and Portobello in pursuit of community led master plan for the Seafield area which we understand will be zoned for housing in the new City of Edinburgh Local Development Plan - City Plan 2030.

Several exploratory meetings have been held with CEC officials, elected members, landowners and developers to build up levels of mutual understanding of the scale and scope of the task that lies ahead. We will continue to keep our respective communities informed as the discussions progress and in the first instance would point anyone interested towards a rudimentary website https://seafieldccc.wordpress.com/ which will be used to hold information about the development.

Leith Links community meeting

As many of you will be aware, the building beside the old bowling green and it’s surrounds are in a state of neglect. We are taking the lead in tackling this and with this in mind, there will be a Zoom meeting to air views on how this resource can best be used. This will take place from 7pm on Monday 19th April.

Could you be a Community Councillor?

We are inviting interested members of our community to think about volunteering their time, energy, enthusiasm and local knowledge to make a difference in our community.

Any person from the age of sixteen, and listed on the Electoral Register as residing in the Leith Links Community Council area can be co-opted onto the Community Council following a vote by our members.

If you would like to find out more information about becoming one of our Community Councillors please contact us by emailing contact@leithlinkscc.org.uk. Your email will be received by our Chair and Secretary who will liaise with you directly to organise a discussion with you.

Seafield odours

Since November 2020 there have been no major odour incidents in the community.

City of Edinburgh Council also confirmed they had received no odour complaints.

It’s taken years but Veolia have reviewed the maintenance programme for the plant and have been attempting to carry out ‘odour sensitive’ work outwith April to September 2021.

Full cleaning and refurbishment of digestors and upgrading of aeration basins and blowers should make equipment quieter and more efficient.

Scottish Water have improved communications using social media to alert the community when work is due to start on areas like cleaning storm tanks and again when work is completed.

They also confirmed that design work and licence permissions will continue during 2021. This will be followed by pre construction work taking place during 2021//22 and finally construction of new sludge storage and cake thickner equipment will commence during 2023. This is part of the additional funding allocated by The Scottish Government.

The site also generate 9300mw of green energy which makes it 90% self sufficient equivalent to powering 9300 homes.

With this in mind work is at an early stage with plans for the new sewage plant to be built on the same site in 2030’s when Scottish Water will operate the plant directly when Veolia’s contract ends in 2031.

Travel and mobility

Moving around the Leith Links area is not great just now, with congestion due to the tramworks, bus diversions, new junction, road closures etc. On top of this, four major new schemes are being proposed:

• Leith Connections – a new, safe cycle path from the foot of Leith Walk to Ocean Terminal, involving road closures and loss of parking spaces.

• Leith Low Traffic Neighbourhood – cutting off through routes to make the central area around the Shore quieter for walking and cycling.

• Controlled Parking Zone in the area between Easter Road / Lochend Road /Restalrig Road and the colonies) involving paid permits, double yellow lines, and loss of parking spaces.

• Spaces for People – should we keep the measures introduced last year, or end them (eg. closure of Links Gardens)?

The Community Council has consulted widely locally on these proposals, with two well-attended public meetings, and has submitted responses to all of these consultations. Is too much being imposed upon us, in a rush, with not enough coordination between the various projects?

In other news…