Test Test

Ian Williamson, Secretary of Cramond & Barnton CC, was in touch recently to set out a list of ongoing issues which have 'exercised us in recent years'. It conveys a good deal of frustration and it will, as he puts it, 'resonate with other CCs'. Here is a summary of what he has to say. The question, then, is what you think should be done, could be done, to break the impasse. Let me know, please.

CEC Relationship: The absence of meaningful engagement and consultation - 'a constant feature'.

Planning: Lack of opportunity to check or challenge the breadth and accuracy of Planning Officers' Handling Reports prior to Development Sub-Committee Meetings.

S75 Developer Obligations: CEC to provide regular public reports on the scale and application of S75 payments.

Transport Strategy: Local CC input on commuter route road-charging, on demarcation of no-go 'rat runs' and on bus service provision.

Active Travel Safety: Insufficient attention paid by Transport Officers to locally identified traffic hazards and travel mode conflicts.

Road Works: Need for more effective management, control and monitoring of road work undertakings, timescales and quality of completion.

Bus Services: Regular Transport & Environment Committee reporting on levels of service provision: Bus operator obligation to pre-consult on substantial changes to route and service provision.

Affordable Housing Obligations (AFO): Regular CEC reporting on the progressive discharge of AFO in respect of individual major developments.

Council Finances: CC desire for stronger, more frequent information on CEC funding and expenditure on both current and capital accounts. More explicit information on expenditure on external service (including consultancy) provision.

Support for Community Councils: 

What are CEC's ideas and proposals for improved levels of practical support?

Community Empowerment: Do community councils actually want more specific, delegated responsibilities for community service provision (as imagined in the Scot Gov Democracy Matters consultation? Can they realistically anticipate being able to put in place the management and resource platform to deliver?

Community Council population size; based on 2011 Census.

Two Scottish Government officials led a recent Improvement Service webinar (10 Oct) to promote directly to Community Councils the new consultation phase of the government's Democracy Matters local governance review. The consultation document is here  . The very earnest endeavour is to give people the opportunity to come together in their communities to imagine how new and inclusive democratic processes can best help their town, village or neighbourhood.

I attended the event. What follows are my personal impressions.

There was no doubting the sincerity of the Scot Gov speakers. However, their somewhat evangelical tone was somewhat undone by the reaction from the floor. (There were around 30 Community Councils represented.) Some long-standing issues emerged.

Tommy McLean of Corstorphine Community Council offers (25 Sep) his opinion on the central role CCs should be looking to play here:

City of Edinburgh Council’s (CEC) Helen Bourquin, from the Community Engagement & Empowerment (CE&E) Team, spoke to EACC on 31 August about the LIP programme. (Here are the slides from the meeting.) I set out below my thoughts on how Community Councils can meaningfully participate. This is an excellent opportunity for Community Councils to be involved in identifying and shaping community priorities within the compass of their own LIP, working alongside CEC and other statutory Partners.

The current plan (covering 2017 to 2023) was justifiably criticised because local communities felt they were not given much opportunity to determine what they considered to be local priorities. The Edinburgh Partnership have asked CEC to engage with communities more effectively this time.

The CE&E Team is leading on this. In the North West Edinburgh Locality (the first plan to be worked on this time) CE&E have led several meetings to engage representatives from local groups (including Community Councils). The joint meetings have proved useful, encouraging and drawing involvement from a broad spectrum of community interests and networks. I understand a similar model of engagement will be used in each locality.

Simply put, Community Councils have a central position within their communities. It’s important that the knowledge and experience that sits there is fed into the LIP process to help develop programmes that are meaningful, realistic and useful for our communities and that make improvements to the lives of people living in them.

Possible roles for EACC:

• Act as a general point of contact and information exchange between CEC and Community Councils to aid effective communication
• Support better communication between Community Councils in different localities so that good practice can be exchanged and knowledge gained can be shared.
• Broadcast updates from the CE&E Team on ongoing work and stay involved in reviews of the effectiveness of the LIPs, to identify changes or improvements where required.

Possible roles for individual Community Councils

• Look for interested Community Councillors who will be the main point of contact for the CE&E Team.
• Have your LIP on the agenda on a regular basis and route feedback, comments and suggestions on priorities and actions needed to CEC. LIPs themselves will only be effective if they are used as living documents and if they improve community work in the areas where we live.
• Make sure representatives attend the review and planning sessions in your locality convened to draw up your new LIP for 2024 to 2029
• Use your own networks to encourage local organisations and individuals to contribute to and participate in the LIP; encourage them to help make it relevant to their community.
• Stick with it once the LIP is in place; take part in ongoing review and evaluation to make sure the plan remains relevant to your local community and is delivering exactly what is agreed and intended.

END / TMcL

'Don't let it sneak up on you', says Bill Rodger, Trinity CC.

The Communal Bin Hub (CBH) project is rolling out in phases, skirting an earlier failed attempt to introduce it within the World Heritage site.

The core objectives of increasing effective recycling capacity and our overall recycling efficiency requires that each CBH carry twice as many bins. That means combining two sites into one larger site approximately 30ft long.

“Phase 1” covers the north east including Trinity. Phases 2 and 3 are underway and Phase 4 is under ‘consultation’ The following draws on Trinity’s experience. Despite having relatively few tenements and communal bins, the issues arising have prompted a significant response, have absorbed much Community Council and Elected Councillor time and have proved intractable.

Implementation started in December 2022 with bull bars installed in the roadway outside the new locations. Bins were combined inside the bars shortly thereafter. Deeply felt concerns were soon reported.

Complaints included:

• Lack of advance notice: Many residents claim that the sight of the bull bars was the first they know of the scheme.
• Consultation: Inadequate and, for some, non-existent. Benefits emphasised but with little acknowledgement of potential issues. Detailed maps were only available if a resident attended one of three in-person sessions.
• Noise: Especially acute where a bedroom faces the roadway with only a small garden. Sleep deprivation is an issue. Glass recycling is the worst especially with steel bins.
• Road safety: If a narrow street is also a thoroughfare, at peak times stressed drivers sometimes mount the opposite pavement to drive around a collection truck.
• Visual intrusion: Affects those residents facing a CBH, worsening their outlook and sometimes removing what had been an open view. Locations are determined objectively by algorithm but those directly impacted can feel arbitrarily unfairly affected, with particular concerns about their property’s market value.
• On-road parking compromised: A real issue if the residents are ageing and have mobility issues.
• Fly-tipping on the rise: The perception that a “communal bin”, now twice its previous size, is effectively a mini city dump is easily formed. Locations with a convenient stop, such as a disabled space, are especially prone.

Solutions might be found through practical conversations with CEC. However, Trinity residents have not found the project to be easily opened up to discussion and to solutions utilising local knowledge. The CEC process followed appears rigidly obstructive. A limited opportunity afforded in late 2022 to local Councillors to facilitate discussion, which did allow some progress to be made, was subsequently constrained by a report in 2023.

The main lesson to be learned by other CC areas ahead of CBH rollout is this: it's essential that those residents likely to be affected engage early with the consultation and look to understand properly their own situation. Urge them to do so and to take a close look. They should not take ‘general reassurances’ as being sufficient and all they need to know. Of course. it can be a challenge to engage those most affected ahead of problems emerging.

In this programme, CEC’s real objective shouldn’t be the principle behind the CBH project (which is commendable) but rather the search for practical solutions through proper engagement, so as to allow programme completion while minimising the impact on quality- of-life for those unfortunate individual residents staring out at their CBH.

END / BR

Opinion: John Loudon, Cramond & Barnton CC, calls for change.

I have a long-standing personal and formerly-professional interest in bus services in and around Scotland. I believe Lothian Buses (LB) serve our city well; we are fortunate to have them. However, their handling of their recently-announced service changes saw them drop somewhat in my estimation and I wish to offer some personal views and suggestions in the wake of what has taken place.

LB is owned 100% by Transport for Edinburgh (TfE) which in turn is owned 91% by City of Edinburgh Council (CEC). There are four Elected Councillors on the Board, which is chaired by Cllr. Scott Arthur.

What has happened?

LB is quite properly run as a successful (and hugely important) commercial business.

It would certainly not be reasonable for Elected Councillors on the LB Board or sitting on, for example, the Transport and Environment Committee, to seek to micromanage LB services. However, I would expect they should be informed about important planned service changes so as to anticipate and then express local concerns. This doesn’t appear to have happened in advance of the May route changes, which came to them and to a good portion of the travelling public as a big surprise.

I sensed immediate dismay on the part of the Councillors and my mailbox began to fill with bus users’ dissatisfaction and resentment.

There is the clear perception of a communication breakdown here and of a poorly-handled attempt to mend it. I wouldn’t want to see this repeated.

The matter hinges on the recent termination of Service 41 and replacement with Service 47 following a new route south from its arrival in the West End. This had been subject to much rumour and speculation and it caused significant angst in and around my area in the north-west of the city, an area many would say is already poorly served by public transport in comparison with other parts of our city.

The public in North West Edinburgh, not least those who are old, infirm or who have young children, have lost reasonable access by the Service 41 to Princes Street, George St, the bus and railway stations, the Mound, the Festival Theatre, as well as the St James Quarter which the Council have actively promoted. For those that do go there, extra time is now involved plus a material cost to those individuals who have to buy two or more tickets. The Service 41 withdrawal has also had a marked impact on the travelling public in the South of the city. Councillors’ mailboxes have filled up there too.

In overall terms, the dropping of Service 41 came as a very unwelcome shock. Even our local Councillor Kevin Lang, who sits on the Transport Committee, was unaware of the planned changes, although CEC officials clearly knew about them well before the necessary application was made to the Traffic Commissioners. As I understand it, the officials made no negative comments. Again, one might ask why that was the case, given the impact of those changes on a sizeable portion of the city bus-user constituency and on prized ‘connectivity’.

What needs to be done?

I believe we need some changes to governance and culture within Lothian Buses to ensure, insofar as commercial and operational constraints allow, that provision of bus services is more responsive to communities’ needs.

We need far better communication and explanation for alterations to services. In this case, I have seen nothing at all from the Head of Communications at TfE.

Councillor Lang tabled a Council motion on 18^th May* (attached) which brought unanimous cross-party support for change. That was a welcome first-step. This is not about politics but our bus services.

Looking ahead, I’d suggest heed should be paid to the City Council’s Public Transport Action Plan, to reflect properly the need for connectivity and to make LB more accountable to City and regional residents for the services it provides.

We need improvement in live bus timetabling information and the introduction of integrated ticketing – to enable the purchase of a single ticket for an origin-to-destination trip and return if needed, which may require use of more than one bus service and possibly the tram and trains.

There is also a need for improved liaison between the City Council’s Roads and Public Transport staff, Lothian Buses and local communities, this to ensure that roads and active travel proposals (e.g., on-road cycle lanes) do not have unforeseen and / or unacceptable implications e.g., delays to commercial or public transport services.

How to move forward?

We require a concerted effort. I’d like Community Councils, working with the EACC, to put pressure on all of their local Councillors to highlight bus user concerns and the desire for change to Cllr. Scott Arthur, Convenor of the Transport Committee, and his fellow members.

Cllr. Arthur, on the Board of TfE, can speak directly to TfE CEO, George Lowder. They can establish what statutory changes are needed to allow the Transport Committee better to work with TfE in advance of important service adjustments, so that local polling and feedback can properly lay the foundation for big changes in routing patterns and the like.

It may be that the legislative structure of the LB – TfE – CEC relationship precludes this. I don’t know. However, in the first instance, the important step is to invite Cllr. Arthur to look into the situation and to report to the Transport Committee on how we get a better communications and public relations deal from Lothian Buses.

*Lothian Buses Lib Dem Motion 18 May 23 - See Menu, under Roads & Transport .

End/JL

Event: 10 Jun 23: West Lothian Joint Forum (WLJF) of Community Councils:  

The New Community Councils of 2023 and beyond:

A Blueprint for a New Form of Local Decision-Making and Democracy 

The WLJF led a screen event to promote the launch of a BLUEPRINT for change in the way Community Councils relate to Local Authorities, Scot Gov and to their own communities. 

“The Joint Forum believes that Community Councils should be more empowered and be given more resources."

Fifty years after their formation, there has been next-to-no change in their empowerment. The time for that change is now, argues the WLJF.

Read the detail in Consultations (see Menu Bar).

End/KR

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24 May 2023: Scottish Community Development Council (SCDC) Event:

Meeting National Standards for Community Engagement.

At some point, your Community Council may become involved in something ‘big’ – community regeneration, placemaking, asset transfers, participatory budgeting, local health and social care support – and dealing with a number of counterparties. In such circumstances, two issues stand to be addressed at the outset:

1. You are going to be ‘fully engaged’, with local residents and businesses and with other bodies and agencies, both public and private;

2. Your ‘project’ is going to need very careful ‘management’.

This SCDC event was a very useful refresher on good-practice principles designed to help you get the best out of the work you’ll be putting in and the best out of the all-round ‘engagement’ you’ll find yourself in the midst of. It showcased how SCDC can help in these situations.

Here is the core ‘checklist’:

Inclusion: Identify the key people and organisations you need to work with.

Support: Identify and overcome any barriers to engagement and participation.

Planning: What exactly are the community’s needs and ambitions here?

Working together: The networks to full engagement and project success.

Methods: Plan the project to win.

Communication: Be clear on who you need to talk to and how you can best work with them.

Impact: Review regularly how you are getting on and what could be done better.

You can get much more on all of this at SCDC.

National Standards for Community Engagement | SCDC - We believe communities matter

SCDC will also offer training and support on a wide range of topics, including the Community Empowerment Act (2015), running participative events and ‘getting your message across’.

One interesting feature of the webinar was the profiling of VOiCE, an online software tool that allows ‘shared’ project planning and management of community engagement programmes.

VOiCE in essence ‘project manages’ the deep detail of the core checklist above. This facility is free-to-use for community organisations such as CCs.

There is more here: VOiCE (voicescotland.org.uk)

All of this is well worth looking over. Speak to Dawn Brown, SCDC Development Manager;

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End/KR

Event: 23 May 2023: Scottish Parliament committee Hearing

The Scottish Parliament Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee held a three-hour evidence session on Community Councils in their 50th year.

What's been achieved? What needs to be done?

EACC was represented by Steve Kerr (Chair), sitting alongside representatives from four other CCs, three other regional CC Associations, Cheshire Association of Local (Parish) Councils, The Improvement Service, the Scottish Community Development Council, and Dr Oliver Escobar (Senior Lecturer in Public Policy) of Edinburgh University.

See the full report under Consultations.

Consultations (edinburghcommunitycouncils.org.uk)

End/KR

19 May 2023: Queensferry & District CC Chair, Keith Giblett, highlights the pressure points. 

North West Edinburgh was a late addition to LDP 1 (2016) and following rejection by the Scottish Government on the grounds that the number of new homes in Edinburgh had to be increased, a land bank for additional homes had to be found. Predominantly North West Edinburgh fulfilled a good part of the land bank needed.

Additional homes were to be built in Cammo, Cramond, Kirkliston, Ratho and Queensferry and so were added to LDP 1. A considerable number of objections were lodged from the locality, ward councillor’s, community councils and constituents to no avail. The main objections were a lack of improved facilities, schools provision, health provision, road improvements, and public transport improvements.

As we see these homes coming out of the ground and population increasing, what we don’t see, contrary to what the communities were told by Planning Officers, is the funding and commitment to improving the services.

Little thought was or has been given during these extensive consultations and subsequent planning applications as to how the actual plans are to be delivered. The development sites are solely housing with no surrounding land for building local businesses, facilities for local employment or for delivering council, health or essential services.

The City of Edinburgh Council’s objectives within 2030 City Plan (LDP 2), 20-Minute Neighbourhood and Low Emission Zoness are going to be extremely difficult to deliver for 2030 unless there is radical re-think with the strategy.

More recently, we have seen business with suitable sites for housing development moving into the city centre with loss of local jobs and making it necessary for employees to travel. An example is Ove-Arup, a business that has worked out of Queensferry for some years, with 80 employees. The buildings they occupied are to be developed into 23 luxury homes.

Presently CEC are holding consultations about school provision; a new West Edinburgh High School was to be built but there are no plans as yet. The preference from the consultation is that Kirkliston has its own High School built. In the interim pupils from Kirkliston will go the Queensferry High School, but CEC don’t know how they will be accommodated once the school reaches 1200 pupil’s capacity. Primary school education is another problem with a new school to be built, but plans are not even being discussed so temporary buildings are being added to existing schools.

We are seeing businesses ‘future-proofing’ commercial and retail property sites by seeking change-of-use from office accommodation to housing. CEC Planning advise that there is nothing that prohibits this kind action. I’m aware that this is a city-wide problem.

Public transport in North West Edinburgh is a serious problem. Few services have changed over the years and the statement made that an increased population would increase and improve public transport hasn’t been reflected in delivery. Through Covid it has been necessary to consolidate public transport; the recent changes being made to the bus service for Cramond is an example. Bus services are built around profitable routes unless they are supported from S.75 monies or are council-supported; so, unless the service providers see profit in a route then little will change. North-West Edinburgh patients will be directed to St John’s hospital for medical treatment and there are very few bus services to take you there. The other factor is that generally bus services take you into the City Centre and not across the city so to travel by bus from West Edinburgh to Sighthill or further south is difficult.

End/KG

12 Apr 2023: On 24 May, the Scottish Community Development Centre (SCDC) is hosting a short webinar (6pm to 7pm) on National Standards for Community Engagement (NSCE). 

SCDC - We believe communities matter

Community engagement is a core part of SCDC's work. SCDC offers practical frameworks and guides as well as training and support to community organisations and public bodies (such as local councils). The National Standards for Community Engagement are good practice principles, based on Inclusion, Support, Working together, Communication, Planning, Methods and Impact. 

The 24 May meeting will profile the VOiCE tool, developed and supported by the Scottish Government to implement NSCE. VOiCE is a plannng and recording software facility that logs and data-manages the meetings and engagements in which your community organisation participates. It offers to take much of the labour out of recording what was said, by whom; what was agreed; what was to be done and what the outcome was. That is potentially a big breakthrough in making the conversations that surround every engagement more productive and fruitful. Worth a look, then. You can learn more about VOiCE here: 

Voice — VOiCE (voicescotland.org.uk)

End/KR

29 November 2022

EACC AGM 24 November 2022: Elections to Members' Board.

Chair: Steve Kerr (Corstorphine CC).

Vice-Chair: Keith Giblett (Queensferry & District CC)

Treasurer: Judy Wightman (Ratho & District CC)

Secretary: Ken Robertson (Grange Prestonfield) 

Roger Colkett (Tollcross CC), Ian Doig (Merchiston CC)

Robert Hodgart (Southside CC), Bill Rodger (Trinityu CC)

At the EGM on 17 February 2022, EACC adopted a new constitution. This is available in the documents section of the website, here.

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