Is this significant? Well, yes and no. We already know the Forth Ports seem entirely comfortable ignoring their own Masterplan with this proposal. However, whilst we haven't been given any information about the arrangement of buildings on the new site, it seems more likely that this new arrangement will cut across at least one of the much vaunted 'view corridors' that were said to provide the structure to the previous Masterplan. They were also put in place to preserve key views in and out of the World Heritage Site in the centre of town, and were based on an Edinburgh Skyline study undertaken in 2007. You can see an illustration the view corridors below.

You may recall that UNESCO conducted an investigation last year into the management of the Edinburgh World Heritage site. In their report it says: 

"The mission specifically considered that the skylines study (Colvin & Moggridge) was an important and proactive tool to protect important views...and to ensure the visual integrity of the World Heritage property and its skyline. This tool can be used to assess any new developments and specifically high-rise buildings in the future." 

It would be interesting to get the UNESCO view (if you'll pardon the pun) on this latest change. One things for sure, it doesn't do anything to lessen the visual impact of the proposals.

View Leith THI Building Restoration Grant Scheme Area in a larger map

It's therefore interesting to see two new Social Enterprises have set-up in Leith, both aiming to help support the local economy in different ways.

Punjab'n De Rassoi, serves a tasty, and healthy version of tradtional indian food. But it's not just another cafe. Set-up by local charity Sikh Sanjog with an enterprise grant from the Scottish Government, the cafe also provides catering training for Sikh women. By the end of the year they aim to have trained up more than 60 women, boosting their self-confidence and financial independence in the process.

Of course, it also helps to raise the profile of the Sikh community locally. And we were really impressed by the commitment from manager, Trishna Singh to try and keep money and jobs in the local community by using local suppliers whereever they can. Compare this business model with the prospect of another boring chain store, and we think you'll agree that Punjab'n De Rassoi offers something far more interesting, and far more valuable to Leith than another branch of Tescos metro.

Even though they've not even had their official launch yet, we're delighted that they've signed up to join our We Love Leith Bonus Bag scheme. If you've got a bonus bag, and you spend more than £10 in the cafe, you'll get a free portion of pakora!

Meanwhile, on Newhaven Road, Lynn at Greetings From Leith, has also launched a social enterprise with a focus on crafting. She's got an incredible selection of hand crafted cards (many with a Leith theme too!), but she also runs workshops on all sorts of things, from using a sewing machine to felting. In the shop, she sells crafty stuff made by a whole load of local residents - many of whom would have no other way to sell the unique things that they make. And best of all from our point of view - Lynn emphasises that a lot of the gifts on sale are made from recycled materials and all the packaging they use is biodegradable too.

Greetings for Leith have also joined our We Love Leith Bonus Bag scheme, offering customers with a bag a free card with every purchase over £5. 

Did you know you can now buy a We Love Leith Bonus Bag on-line from our on-line shop?

Greener Leith is a big fan of the My Society service FixMyStreet.com that makes the process of reporting issues like potholes, litter and graffiti easy and more transparent. 

There's already various phone applications to make it easy to report things when you're out and about. However, a new service, called Fix My Tweet, has been launched that allows you to report things into FixMyStreet via Twitter. All you need to do is register your email on the site, and then you send a tweet with the postcode, a description of the problem, a link to the photo (optional) and the hashtag #fixmytweet

As an example, here's a tweet we made earlier:

Best of all if you're using Twitter from your phone, (using an application such as Tweetie 2 for iPhone, Ubertwitter for Blackberry or Twidroid for Android) you don't even need to know the postcode of the place where the problem is. You can geotag your tweet instead. This is an important feature, and we think this'll make the FixMyTweet service even easier to use than the official iPhone application.

Local authorities in England are starting to embace FixMyStreet by investing in it in various ways. FixMyTweet was built by Lichfield District Council - even though it works throughout the UK. Meanwhile Barnet Council have integrated the service straight into their main website.

Whilst we've not detected the same enthusiasm for FixMyStreet in Edinburgh Council, you can continue to view the latest local reports that people have made on our Fix My Leith page here. It's heartening to see that more and more local folk seem to be using it, and FixMyTweet is so easy to use that we hope it will encourage even more folk to get involved.

You can register your email with FixMyTweet.com here.

This week we're putting together our formal response to the Scottish Government on the main environmental impacts that we think will stem from the proposed Biomass plant. Meanwhile, it's interesting to see that there's been a 25% rise in the share price of Forth Ports on the back of a take over bid. According to the Evening News Forth Ports has become a particularly attractive investment as a consequence of it's potential to earn lot's of cash in the future.

"Forth gave a heavy hint that the consortium was attempting to snap up the company on the cheap as it stressed its portfolio of ports, property and renewable energy projects "has the potential to appreciate greatly in value when property markets recover".

Forth is working with its joint venture partner Scottish & Southern Energy on proposals for four biomass plants at its Scottish ports which could add "significant value" as well as make a major contribution to the country's renewable energy needs."

You can perhaps draw your own conclusions from this latest twist in the story about how much cash these plants stand to generate for their owners - if they get the go ahead. 

Lastly, Dave is also trying to raise £500 for The Citadel youth centre, by shaving off all his hair. You can sponsor him on-line here. 

It's going to be more like a market place, with loads of interesting stalls there on the theme of Housing and the Built Environment. Changeworks will be dishing out Energy and Waste saving advice, and with any luck we'll figure out a way to get the Eco-driving simulator there too. Out of the Blue will be doing the catering.

As part of our We Love Leith campaign, we've been running an on-line consultation gather ideas that should be in a 'Future Travel Plan for Leith.' At the LNP meeting, we'll be running a paper version of this consultation to give folk a chance to feed into this process who don't have internet access. We'll also have a general stall, so that you can quiz us about the other stuff we do, and see if you want to get more involved.

Also important - there's a chance to submit your ideas on how the Housing and Built Environment sub-group (that Greener Leith sits on) should spend their devolved budget for improving the streets and land around council housing. There will be a chance to find out what we spent the money on this financial year - things like getting rid of this, and upgrading it - to make it better for walking and cycling on.

Rumour has it that there may even be a display from Trams for Edinburgh too - as the formal consultation process on the changes that will need to be made to the streets along the tram route is now open too.

This meeting gives everyone the chance to have their say on how the neighbourhood could look in the future. Look forwards to seeing you there!

As part of our We Love Leith campaign to promote greener travel, we mailed everyone in the Leith Neighbourhood Partnership (that's about 30,000 households!) with a travel map, and a neighbourhood travel plan that gives residents more information about how they can get to the top 10 local travel destinations, to compliment the map.

The neighbourhood travel plans show you which bus to take if you want to take the bus. And If you want to walk or cycle, the travel plans show you how long it's likely to take you, and how many calories and climate changing CO2 you would save in the process!

We're delighted to be able to make these travel plans available on-line in case anyone missed them. In particular, we've had a few enquiries from local businesses looking for these resources for their staff. 

To do this we worked with our project partners SISTech, to divide the Leith Neighbourhood Partnership up into nine areas*, that you can see on the map above. Once you've worked our which neighbourhood area you live in, you can download the appropriate travel plan from the links below.

1. Pilrig/Broughton

2. Easter Road/Abbeyhill

3. Leith Central

4. Leith Links South

5. Leith Links

6. Bonnington

7. Newhaven/Fort

8. North Leith

9. Western Harbour

If your neighbourhood travel plan inspires you to to try a greener way to travel about the local neighbourhood, why not let us know by making a We Love Leith travel pledge?

*Now, we made the boundaries of these areas up, and their names, to make the travel plans 'work' - but we know they don't always match up with traditional neighbourhood boundaries and names so please don't bend our ears about it! 

Ten restaurants have signed up to the first "World Tour Of Leith - Dine Around" and there will be two offers available each day of the week starting March 1st.

MONDAY 1st March

Free pizza at La Favorita / Free cake at Word Of Mouth.

TUESDAY 2nd March

Free bottle of wine at Vittoria's / Two for One dining at Passage Of India.

WEDNESDAY 3rd March

Kids eat free at Shezan Tandoori / Free bottle of wine at Ghurka Brigade.

THURSDAY 4th March

Kids eat free at Jolly Restaurant / Free bottle of wine at Joseph Pearce.

FRIDAY 5th March

Two for One afternoon tea at Valvona & Crolla. / Two for One dining at Massimo.

Remember to take your We Love Leith bonus bag with you, and pick up a few more discounted bits and pieces along the way.

Read our previous post on the remarkable history of this parking bay.

Feeling creative? Well here's a project for you. Using Lilypad electronics, Leah Buechley has produced a jacket with built in flashing LEDs that work like indicators. She gives a detailed tutorial on how to build flashing LED indicators into any piece of clothing. Flash, eh?

Found via the ETA

The new 'Biodiversity for Communities' grants scheme is a very simple process, allowing small groups based in Edinburgh, Mid or East Lothian to apply for up to £100 to improve their local park, community garden or woodland and will lead to a greater variety of native plants, trees and habitats to attract animals, birds and insects, particularly bees.

Bees are an essential part of the ecosystem and are vital to our economy. But bees are struggling for survival - it is estimated that 20% of Scotland's bees have disappeared over the last year. The decrease is believed to be due to pollutants, chemicals in the environment, loss of native habitat and low immune systems.

Bees feed on the pollen produced by native plants, and need a biodiverse ecosystem in order to be healthy.

Lack of biodiversity is an issue that can be tackled locally, and everyone can make a difference with the greenspaces they have available to them. Whether a group wants to plant trees, wildflowers, bulbs or hedges, create a bog garden or encourage wildlife with boxes and feeders, ELGT might be able to help. The Trust can award up to £100, help with planning the project and also help to source materials.

Contact katriona@elgt.org.uk or 0131 445 4025 for more information or an application form.

We weren't sure whether it would take off, but now that it has nearly 200 local members we felt that there was scope to integrate this site with the social a little better.

So, you may have noticed that we've redesigned our website a little bit. We've got three columns now, and whilst the blog is still 'front and centre' the extra column allows us to show some of the latest activity from the Greener Leith Social on our main site too.

However, the best thing about our redesign is that the events page is back! It now shows the next 10 upcoming events that people have added onto the Greener Leith Social. We've always found it a lot of work to keep updating the events page, as there is always so much going on in Leith. By using the events calendar on the Greener Leith Social, it means that anyone who is registered on the Greener Leith Social can add and promote their own events, and everything will update without generating any extra work. 

Check out our new 'social' events page here: http://www.greenerleith.org/events/

And if anyone reading this runs their own Leith focussed website, you could add the same events to your website using this rss feed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/GLSLatestEvents

If you haven't joined the Greener Leith Social yet, we'd love it if you did!

How the Foot of the Walk will be affected by the Trams

• Edinburgh Tram TRO Drawings (38Mb pdf)
• Statement of Case For Traffic Regulation Orders (1.2MB pdf)

If you'd prefer not to download these files, then the plans will be on public exhibition too. You'll be able to see them at both MacDonald Road Library, and Leith Libraries, or if you prefer there'll be a staffed exhibition at the City Chamber. All displays will be running 22nd February to the 20th March 2010.

There's a vast amount of information in these documents, and we're sure most people will mainly be concerned with what's likely to be happening at the end of their street, so we'll save you a blow by blow account at this stage.

However, it's worth noting that the exhibition of the proposals coincides with the formal public consultation period on the proposals. So, if you want to influence the plans - now is your chance.

Objections should be made, in writing quoting details of the grounds of objection,quoting reference
TRO/09/60A, within the consultation period which ends 21 March 2010 to:

The City of Edinburgh Council,
c/o Dundas and Wilson,
Saltire Court,
20 Castle Terrace,
Edinburgh, EH1 2EN.

As the Leith Businesses Association point out on their blog post on the matter:

it is not possible to submit an objection to reject the TRO, as it enjoys prior approval because it is a consequence of the Edinburgh Tram (Line One) Act.  It is only possible to object to the manner in which the Order is being applied, e.g. the removal of a right-turn at a particular junction, or the removal or parking spaces.

When you're considering all the proposed changes to the neighbourhood you might also want to have a look at the results of the traffic modelling report released by TIE in January this year.

Although it would appear some boffins got paid an awful lot to produce the traffic models, the results of this model are based upon a remarkable series of assumptions, including future developments in the area. So we'd think that you might want to take these results with a pinch of salt. Afterall, in recent weeks we've heard of plans to start building a giant ferris wheel, a cruise liner terminal, a power plant, and a wind turbine factory on the docks - not to mention all those hotels cropping up everywhere. And with the exception of Port of Leith Housing Association, house building everywhere seems to have almost ground to a halt. How can anyone predict future traffic against that background?

Anyway, caveats aside, there are some interesting predications. The main point is that the tram will displace traffic away from Leith Walk and onto other nearby arterial routes. In the somewhat fuzzy map below (that shows traffic predictions for peak time travel in the morning), the streets coloured red show places where traffic is set to fall. Meanwhile the green streets show places where traffic is set to increase.

Virtually every other route in Leith will see increased traffic levels whilst the study also predicts increased congestion on the junctions around Picardy Place, Foot of the Walk, London Road/Leith Walk and the Baltic Street/Constitution Street/ Bernard Street Junction. All those junctions will be 'at capacity,' and we note that the report recommends that further consideration be given to a number of junctions that aren't on the tram route, so that they can cope better with the extra traffic.

For example, the traffic study highlights the fact that people traveling up Easter Road will be more likely to drive down Brunswick Road, or Dalmeny Street, in order to avoid congestion on London Road. Should more be done to cut down 'rat-running' through the streets between Easter Road and London Road?

Let us know if you have an idea that could improve on the current proposals.

The total length of the ride is just over 10 miles. As ever, we plan to meet outside the Mal Maison Hotel on the Shore, at 10.30am.

We're also pleased to be able to offer anyone who'd like to try a run on an electric bike the chance to try one out on the ride for free. However, if you want to take us up on this offer, you'll need to contact us to book one in advance.

Here's a map of the route:

These rides are free, fun, open to people of all levels of fitness, and led by trained cycle leaders. More info about the rides is available here, but if you've got any questions about these rides do contact us.

We first wrote about the orphaned phone box on February the 3rd, and following a mini media circus that this post triggered, the Leith Business Association let it be known that TIE had made arrangements to move the phonebox on the 11th of February. It never happened on the 11th and so we were beginning to get despondent about the whole thing, especially after we saw some railings go up around the box on the 12th, only for them to be taken down again at the end of the day with the phone box still intact. Was the phone box destined to stay there for many more months to come afterall?

Well it turned out that the emotional rollercoaster hadn't ended. We're sure you'll be able to imagine our elation when, by some strange coincidence, we managed to snap this photo today, just minutes after the phonebox had been removed!

There's the phonebox on the back of the truck! Going, going, nearly gone! Of course, feeling compelled to thank the contractor for making such a massive improvement to the Leith Walk streetscape, we couldn't help but ask the guy in the cab ,"so are you just taking a break before you get the bin up on the back of the truck too?"

"Naw," He said, "My line is just for the phonebox...."

It looks like this one has panned out just as Michael Traill predicted on Twitter over a week ago.

Now, to be fair, these bits of street furniture are 'managed' by different organisations, so perhaps it's unreasonable to expect them both to go on the same day. And, yes we should of course thank the people who took action behind the scenes to finally get rid of the broken phone box. But, at the end of the day - neither the bin, nor the phone box should have been left there in the first place. So, shall we open a book on when that expensive parking bay will finally be available for use?

Stay tuned for the next gripping installment of phoneboxgate  bingate. We know you can hardly wait.