We had previously hinted that we were planning something fun for Love Parks Week and so we're pleased to confirm that our plans have come off.

To coincide with Love Parks Week, on the 21st of June we're inviting everyone to the Persevere Community Garden, because we need your help.

First off, we'll be building 8 bat boxes from recycled wood and sticking them up on the walls of the garden. We didn't know it until recently, but according to local bat experts the Persevere Garden is near the edge of the observed range of two rare bat species - Daubenton Bats and Pipistrelle Bats. So we've managed to be able to get hold of a small grant from SNH/CSV to allow us to do more to encourage them to roost in Leith, which will hopefully extend their range over time. As we've also dedicated part of the garden to biodiversity and wildlife we hope that there'll be an increasing number of insects for them to eat too.

We have been meaning to plant some tatties in the garden this year, as they are great for breaking new ground. We're pleased to announce that the good people at Wiggly Wigglers, the on-line composting come gardening come eco-store people (who also make the highly rated wiggly wigglers podcast), have kindly donated us 25kg's of seed potatoes for free, so we'll need to plant them in the garden too. If you haven't ventured into the world of worm composting, then Wiggly Wigglers can provide you with everything you need to start - even the worms!

Yummy food and refreshments will be provided by Greener Leith to keep you building, digging and planting. Proceedings will start at 12.30pm. Please contact us to let us know if you plan to come so that we can plan roughly how much food to sort out. See you there...  

People aged under 16 will need to bring an adult to take responsibility for them, sorry.  

Greener Leith is pleased to confirm that this years AGM will be on the 17th of June at 7.30pm in our usual venue, the Persevere Room of the Leith Kirkgate Community Centre.

This year has been the best year yet for Greener Leith, so you'll be able to hear about what we've achieved and discuss proposals for the future. We'd love to expand our committee, and so if you're interested in joining the management committee please contact us.

We're also keen to grow our membership, and to encourage people to join, we're please to announce an exclusive membership deal with the City Car Club. It costs just £5 per year to join Greener Leith. New members are now entitled to a massive 30% discount on the joining fee of the City Car Club, as well as 5 hours of free motoring. In total, a discount worth around £50 in total.

Gary Bell for the City Car Club, will be at the AGM with a car so that he can demonstrate how the service works. There are 6 dedicated City Car Club bays within the EH6 area: Elbe Street, Dock Street, Pitt Street, Madeira Street, Casselbank Street and Newhaven Road . Two more bays open soon in Cables Wynd and Tower Street.

We hope this offer will encourage more people to sign up for the City Car Club, as the scheme could play an important role in reducing local traffic congestion.
 
You can join both Greener Leith and the City Car Club on-line. When you join Greener Leith we will email you a special discount code you can use on the City Car Club website to receive your membership discount.  

Greener Leith is calling for everyone to vote on the future of Leith Links, with the launch the Leith Links Ask. The project aims to find out which options for improving the park have the most popular support.

Alastair Tibbitt, Chair of Greener Leith said 'There are 10 project proposals for improving the Links, so we're certain that there will be something that appeals to everyone. Our volunteers have put 10 short film clips on the internet that explain a bit about what the proposals mean and show what park users think of each proposal. Now we want everyone else to have their say too at www.leithlinksask.org.”

“Leith Links is a really significant park, so we're not just targeting Leithers – we would like to see everyone who lives in Edinburgh voting and having their say. We do recognise that some people don't have internet access, so we're also producing 1000 leaflets which allow people to vote using a freepost ballot paper.”

Amongst the 10 proposals there are plans for bringing back tennis facilities to the links, creating mini nature reserves throughout the park, building modern facilities for footballers  and establishing a café.

Cllr Gordon Munro, Chairperson of the Leith Neighbourhood Partnership said, “I welcome this unique initiative. Leith Links is loved throughout the city, not just in Leith . Here is a chance for you to have your say and give your priorities for the future development of the Links .I'll be making my choices - its up to you to make yours ."

Greener Leith volunteers were involved behind the video camera too, working with the support of locally based film maker, Lou McLoughlan of Beanland productions. Local volunteer Elric Honore, said, “It was great to pick up tips from a professional film maker, and interviewing Leithers about the proposals for the Links was really good fun.”

The video clips feature local residents, well known Leithers and regular users of the sports facilities on the links, as well as people who were just passing through on the days when our volunteers were filming.  It is hoped that the videos provide a fun and thought provoking way to bring the 10 improvement proposals to life.

Once the results are in at the end of the summer, The City of Edinburgh Council, together with Greener Leith and other partners, will then aim to implement the most popular projects.

Please help promote this project by telling your friends, family, work colleagues and neighbours about it. See the Leith Links Ask website for more info.  

Members of Greener Leith attended a planning meeting at St Mary’s Primary School last week, to find out more about the design proposals for the Leith Links Seaward Extension. Members of the Planning Department as well as Landscape Architects, the Paul Hogart Company, were on hand to explain the design proposals. Sadly, there were only about 15 members of the public and 2 councillors present.

A number of people we spoke to felt that the meeting was poorly attended because the council did not promote the meeting well enough. Whilst the council did contact us with details of the meeting which we then promoted on this site, it is perhaps telling that the city of Edinburgh council neglected to inform the Leith Links Allotment Site Rep of the meeting. Given the impact the proposals will have on the allotments, we're in no doubt that some of the allotment holders would have liked to have attended this meeting.

At the meeting, a key issue that emerged was the subject of the total amount of green space in the Leith Docks Regeneration Plans. It seemed that people in the audience felt that it was hard to judge the value of the Leith Docks Design Framework without more information on the proposed designs and uses of other  open spaces in Leith Docks.

One fact that we did glean from the officials was that the only new playing fields that are proposed in the whole Leith Docks redevelopment proposals will be the ones in the Leith Links Seaward Extension. Furthermore, these playing fields will also be required for use by the new secondary school planned for the development. No guarantees were given over the management arrangements for the new proposed playing fields, so there is a chance that these pitches could be fenced off from the public and only available to the public for restricted use outside school hours. Given the shortage of free public sports facilities in the docks development this is a situation that appeared unacceptable to Greener Leith volunteers and many of the others in the room.  

However, Greener Leith volunteers felt that many of the points we raised were taken seriously by both the landscape architects and the planners, in particular the points we made about 'designing out' anti-social behavior. We hope now that the planning committee will also heed them, and ensure that the design proposals are reviewed accordingly.

Interestingly, the proposals do hold out some hope for improvements to the cycle path links to the east of Leith Links. The construction of a new fire station that will border the South East end of the extension, could see the replacement of the steps up to the cycle path with a ramp into the first stage of the extension. As Greener Leith has previously campaigned for ramp access to this path, this is a  component of the proposal we are particularly keen to see completed.

Much of  this development will not take place for another 10-15 years, and the area on which this park is to be built is currently industrial land. However, it is important to raise any concerns you may have now about the design, as you may not get another chance!

You can download the consultation document and read Greener Leith's submission to the consultation here.

The Planning Department has contacted Greener Leith with news of two draft development briefs that have been put out for consultation. You can download both consultation documents from these links:

• Steads Place/Jane Street Development Brief
  
• Bonnigton Development Brief

The Planning Department would love to hear as many views as possible on these plans. You can submit these by email to Ian Tame whose email address is ian.tame@edinburgh.gov.uk by 27th of June 2008.

There will also be a public meeting held in Bonnington Primary School scheduled for 7.00pm Wednesday 11th of June.

Whilst Greener Leith is broadly supportive of the proposals to develop more active frontages, better footpath links and mixed uses in the area we note that only two options are presented in the Steads Place/Jane Street Development Brief for the footpath linkage from the North East of Pilrig Park to Leith Walk. Neither of these options are particularly satisfactory.

Greener Leith would like to see this path (as in option 4b) follow the route of the railway embankment from Pilrig Park as much as possible. However, option 4B proposes that path ends in steps down to Leith Walk, which does little to promote sustainable transport. We see no reason why a ramp cannot be constructed to give access up to the path. This could be dug into the southern side of the embankment. This solution would retain public access to this neglected, underused bit of greenspace (see the photo above), whilst at least leaving the option open for  the further development of a 'green travel route' linking the North Edinburgh Cycle Network, Pilrig Park, Manderston/Gordon St and Leith Links/Cycle Routes from Easter Rd.

We note that the brief rules out any hope of bringing back a bridge over Leith Walk from the embankment on the West side to the East side of Leith Walk. Even if this possibility seems unlikely today, we feel the Steads Place/Jane St design brief should not rule out this option for the future by permitting private development of the embankment now.