Leith Week of Action 2 - What Happened

The latest Leith Neighbourhood Partnership 'Week Of Action' took place in the first week of June, and tackled the area between Leith Walk, Easter Rd, Montgomery Street and London Road. The idea behind a Week of Action is to get as many agencies and organisations to work together in an area in order to really make a noticable difference. As you can see from the photo - the local community safety team even managed to enlist the help of the Wombles this time around. 

But, the Week of Action is not just an excuse for folk to get dressed up in silly costumes. Here's some of the the things that were achieved during the week:

• 206 local businesses were inspected to make sure that they were disposing of their waste properly - and 3 were fined and 33 'required to enter into a waste management contract'. 
• 1 buisness was also charged for selling alchohol to someone under 18.
• 75 hours of dog fouling patrols were undertaken, but no-one got fined.
• 2 people were issued with litter fines.
• 5 people received 'verbal warnings'.
• Lots of motor vehicle enforcement. 150 vehicles stopped, and 4 people got fined for not wearing a seatbelt and 4 fines were also issued for using a mobile phone whilst driving.  
• 9 people were arrested for a variety of things ranging from Breach of the Peace to Possesion of drugs.
• 3 stolen bikes were recovered.
• Proactive work was also undertaken with nearly 2000 homes being offered home safety checks. 150 took up the offer. Common stairs were also checked for safety - 33 were referred to the Edinburgh Stair Partnership who will work with the residents to fix up the main doors.
• Graffiti was also removed from various places in the area.

Of course, the week culminated in the Parklife 2 event in Dalmeny Street Park. Greener Leith had a stall there, and we'd like to thank the volunteers who helped to run it. We met lots of new people at the event, and paid for The Bike Station to run a free bike repair workshop and trail skills workshop for cyclists.

Not bad for a weeks work!

Where are the Poo-Gooders of Leith?

Dog Fouling is an emotive subject. On the one hand, there are the local residents who are rightly concerned that otherwise appealing green spaces are turned into little more than dog toilets. Nowhere is this more of a problem than in small urban parks with lots of well used childrens play facilities.

On the other hand, dog owners are a major group of park users. In fact, without them, some open spaces would be hardly used at all. It is little wonder that responsible dog owners who do pick up their dogs poo feel victimised.

Here in Leith, Montgomery Street park residents have recently been successful in their bid to have their whole park classified as a dog free zone, whilst down the road in Dalmeny Street park the local friends group encourages local dog owners to scoop the poop by organising an annual dog show. A recent week of action in the Dalmeny Street and Montgomery Street area saw council wardens go all out to try to fine irresponsible dog owners using mobile CCTV in most of the local parks.

However, even council officers admitted at this weeks Neighbourhood Partnership meeting that they had to struggle to find a clean bit of grass before they could put up their bouncy castle for the Parklife 2 event in the Dalmeny Street during the week of action.

There seems to be a growing local consensus that more enforcement action is needed to tackle the problem of dog fouling whether that's to enforce dog bans in some parks, or to issue fines direct to irresponsible dog owners. It'll be interesting to see whether an increase in the number of environmental wardens based in North Edinburgh will reverse the decline in fines issued for littering and dog fouling in recent years in Leith.

There are responsible dog owners in Leith too. Our favourite responsible dog owner, is one regular user of Pilrig Park who believes in maintaining good 'Poo Karma'. If his dog does a poo in the park, but he didn't see it, can't find it or he doesn't have any poo bags that day, this particular dog owner doesn't worry. He simply makes sure he picks up another poo that he finds the next time he's able to - even if his dog didn't do it. In this way, he ensures that he has good poo Karma at all times. If only all dog owners were so worried about their poo karma.

Anyway, the video below tells the story of how dog owners who use one Devon Park organised themselves into a group to encourage people to scoop the poop, when threatened with a dog ban from their local parks. After watching this we couldn't help but wonder, will the poo-gooders of Leith ever get organised?

Pooches in the Park 2009

Ellie, who volunteers for both the Friends of Dalmeny Street Park and Greener Leith has sent us some pics from Pooches in the Park last Sunday. She said "there were lots of happy faces both canine and human and it was bigger and better than ever, the twilight barking must have worked (you remember that from 101 dalmations)?"

"Either way, they came in all shapes and sizes, they made us laugh, the made us cry they made us cheer as they played dead, caught biscuits (even though the sun was in their eyes apparently) did tricks with footballs, leapt jumped or just looked cute!"

Awww.

Leith Week Of Action 2

The Leith Neighbourhood Partnership is gearing up for the next "Week Of Action". This time they're going to target the area bounded by Leith Walk, Easter Road, London Road and Dalmeny Street. Both Dalmeny Street and Montgomery Street Parks will be included during the Week. The focus of the week is on Anti social behavior, cleanliness and green space improvements.

Here's the ever growing list of events and intitiatives that the Week of Action will entail:

• Graffiti removal from public property, and on private property, where owners give permission.
• A litter pick at Montgomery Street Park, along with repainting the substations to cover graffiti
• Litter pick at Dalmeny Street Park.
• Advice and help available from the Edinburgh Stair Partnership for groups of owners who want to carry out common repairs or improve security in their stair.
• Extra Environmental Wardens on patrol to tackle dog fouling and litter.
• Trade Waste checks of businesses by Environmental Wardens
• Removal of dumped rubbish and general tidying up of streets and open spaces.
• A drop in surgery at McDonald Road Library
• High visibility patrols by Police and Community Safety Officers, with an antisocial behaviour focus in the evenings.
• CCTV van patrols.
• A leaflet drop to about 3000 homes with leaflets on crime prevention, fire safety, community safety and the Neighbourhood Partnership
• A bike theft crime prevention initiative - bikes in stairs will have leaflets attached to them
• Bike checks on arterial routes - Police will give advice to responsible cyclists, while stolen bikes will be identified and action taken
• Police checks on vans and lorries for roadworthiness
• 80-100 business crime prevention surveys will be offered to businesses in the area.
• Crime prevention and fire safety surveys will be offered to homeowners.
• DVLA will patrol for untaxed vehicles.
• Alcohol test purchasing will take place for sales to underage young people.
• Patrols by the Police Mounted Section.
• The Police Search and Recovery section will carry out checks for stolen property.
• A double parking operation -  this will include the removal of double parked vehicles (tbc)
• Police enforcement of outstanding warrants across the area.
• Unmarked cycle patrols in the area.
• Council Licensing Standards Officers will be checking on licensed premises.
• The Police and Community Safety Teams will be at the Parklife event on 6 June, which has been organised by the Friends of Dalmeny Street Park. We hope to provide the mobile football pitch, Police vans, a bouncy castle and face painters, balloons and a special visit by two Wombles.

At the Parklife event on the 6th of June, Greener Leith is working with the Friends of Dalmeny Street Park to fund a free bicycle repair workshop and the Northshore trials skills workshops from The Bike Station to the park. This means that you can get your bike serviced for free, and if you fancy improving your bike skills there'll be trained staff there to help you practice some stunts!

There'll also be the opportunity to find out more about the City Car Club - with guided tours of one of the car club cars, direct from the Car Club staff. 

We're also looking for volunteers to help us out on our stall at the Park Life event. If you can help - get in touch.

The Leith Food Map

Ed, one of our newest Greener Leith members, has made an on-line 'food map' for Leith. Based on the outputs of our food summit, Ed has put all the community food related activities on-line so now you can easily see where the various food co-ops, community gardens and so forth are. We've no doubt that the food map is probably missing some important places and so please do contact us, if you you know of something that should be on the map. Thanks Ed, for putting this together, we think it's great!

It turns out that Ed is a bit of an expert in Local Food Politics. He also writes a great blog, which you might want to check out if, like us, you're interested in that sort of thing.

Friends of Dalmeny Street Park - Planting Programme Meeting + Roundtable on 'Sustainability'

The Friends of Dalmeny Street Park invite you to a meeting at Out of the Blue on Thursday, 16th at 8pm to discuss a plan and programme for the park planters and the budding plant nursery in Out of the Blue which will lead us up to a beautiful Spring.  If you’re interested in learning about gardening, have experience and/or ideas that you’d like to see come – literally – to fruition,  please come along.  

Before that meeting, from 6pm-8pm, Out of the Blue is holding the first of a series of Roundtable discussions about what we, as a community, can do to address the issues we all face.  Appropriately, the first will be on sustainability which is completely relevant to The Friends of Dalmeny Street Park for a number of reasons.  Details of that are below:

ROUNDTABLE: ‘Sustainability’
Thursday Oct 16th 6-8pm
Our first ROUNDTABLE will focus on the issue of sustainable living – here in the city of Edinburgh. The series of three evenings will be focused by Justin Kenrick, Chair of PEDAL (Portobello Transition Towns initiative) and will also be informed by the work of the Switch On to Climate Change project at SEAD which supports community action on climate change.  Our enquiry is intended to identify ways that we as a community can commit ourselves to achieving a sustainable way of life.
There will be no cost for the event but we do require that you book in advance.
Please RSVP your intention to attend to: John Molleson, jimolleson@yahoo.co.uk or 667 4408

Friends of Dalmeny Street Park - Open Meeting

The Friends of Dalmeny Street Park (FDSP) invite you to an open meeting this evening Tueaday 7th October at 7pm Out of the Blue's Drill Hall (36 Dalmeny Street, Leith).The meeting will include an introductions and short background to FDSP  and the Parklife projects to guests and newcomers, as well as updates on current project (e.g. the Stop Ball / Playpark Renovation, the SNH Planters Project). Suggestions for future projects welcome!

Dalmeny Steet Parklife'08

 

Spend days out in the sun with the Friends of Dalmeny Street Park this start of summer. The Friends are a community group initiated by Out Of The Blue using the arts as a catalyst for action. Following our ‘No messing’ campaign and litter pick the 25^th of May, the 'Parklife' Leith Festival weekend of the 31^st May/1^st June offers a wide range of locally-led activities celebrating the spirit of Leith: community gardening, basketball tournament for over-16s, 5-a-side football for under-18s and more.

If sport is not your thing, come to our tea and scones marquee and enjoy outdoor poetry performances by local artists. Dog owners also have a special treat: the Sunday 1st of June will also host our first Dog Show in collaboration with Braid Vets and the Lorne Primary School ECO Committee. In brief, come out and play!