Established and managed by local volunteers, Greener Leith is dedicated to making Leith greener in every sense. We need your support! The more members we have the greener Leith will get.
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August 3, 2011 by Ally The Friends of Montgomery Street Park are organising a summer fair on the 20th of August. More details in the flyer below.
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May 19, 2011 by Ally 
The Leith Walk Primary School Parent Council and the Friends of Montgomery Street Park will be hosting a Picnic in the Park on Saturday, 28th May 2011, from 12-4pm. The event, held in conjunction with Greener Leith, will benefit Leith Walk Primary School, with a portion of proceeds also going to support Friends of Montgomery Street Park.
Highlights will include a barbecue, bouncy castle, five-a-side football, and a variety of games and activities for children. Attendees are encouraged to bring picnic supplies and spend a fun afternoon in support of their local community.
Chris Rankin, Chair of the Friends of Montgomery Street Park, said: “We really enjoy holding these types of community-building events that encourage people to make use of the park. A picnic is a great opportunity to enjoy the nice spring weather and to meet our neighbours, all in support of a good cause!”
Catriona Grant, Chair of the Leith Walk Parent Council, said that money raised on the day will help to purchase much-needed play equipment for the school, adding: “Working with the Friends of Montgomery Street Park seemed like a natural fit, as the school is located so near to the park and many of our pupils play there on a daily basis. In fact, some pupils from Leith Walk helped the Friends Group to plant an apple orchard earlier this year, which was a great experience for them. We hope to continue to work together in the future to create positive change in the community!”
You can find out more about this event on the Greener Leith Social. If you have an event you would like to promote to Leithers you can add it for free to the Greener Leith Social here.
Food, Greener Leith, Parks And Green Spaces Friends of Montgomery Street Park January 19, 2011 by Ally 
A local group has put a call out for local volunteers to help plant a new community orchard in Montgomery Street Park on the 26th of January.
The Friends of Montgomery Street Park were awarded funding through the Leith Decides participatory budgeting event that took place in December last year.
Volunteers are needed to help prepare the ground so that pupils from Leith Walk Primary School can plant the trees later on in the day.
Head Teacher Stewart Crabb wrote to say how excited they are at the prospect:
“The orchard project presents a wonderful opportunity for the school to become further involved in the community. Our children would be involved from the planting stage through growing and harvest of the apples. This presents children with a chance to grow an interest and curiosity for trees. The harvesting stage would help us encourage healthy eating.”
Greener Leith would like to extend our whole hearted support to the Friends, as this project will provide a lasting improvement to the area and compliments other local food projects in the area that Greener Leith has supported like the Leith Links Childrens Orchard, the Pilrig Park berry hedge and the Persevere Community Garden.
Later this year we'll also be looking for volunteers to help plant some more free public food trees and bushes in Pilrig Park and Leith Links. More details on those events to follow.
In the meantime, you can find out more about the Montgomery Street Park Planting event on their Facebook page.
November 8, 2010 by Ally 
Local people in Leith are being given the chance to take part in an exciting new pilot project which will see them make some very tough decisions on local funding.
Anyone who lives or works in the Leith Neighbourhood Partnership area is eligible to vote - and there are some real decisions to make. There are a huge range of proposals, including proposals for a community orchard project in Montgomery Street Park, a new smartboard for Hermitage Park Primary School, new tents for a local Scout troop, support for young people to learn how to produce radio programmes and an application from Leith Festival for funding for the Christmas Lights at the Foot of the Walk. In total there are 29 projects, worth more than £26,000 that are looking for a share of the £16,000 pot that is available through the process.
The special voting event will take place at Leith Academy on Saturday 27 November from 1pm.
The people behind each proposal will be given just 3 minutes to explain to the audience why they should reecieve funding. Then, in an 'X Factor' style vote, the public will be asked to score each group out of five, with the winners receiving funding of up to £1,000 each. The results will be announced at the end of the day.
Councillor Jenny Dawe, Leader of the City of Edinburgh Council, said: "This is a worthwhile project focusing on the local groups in Leith, and is good example of empowering communities by devolving funding decisions to a local level."
You can find out more details about the projects that will be looking for your vote from the Leith Neighbourhood Partnership website. Which ones do you think are worth 5 out of 5?
November 19, 2009 by Ally 
1300 more bulbs are bound for Leith after the City of Edinburgh Council confirmed that they're willing to donate bulbs for free to Redbraes Community Garden and Greener Leith. Volunteers at Redbraes Community Garden managed to bag 1000 crocus for their area, whilst Greener Leith will be splitting 300 daffodil bulbs between Persevere Community Garden and the Pilrig Park Berry Hedge.
These additional bulbs follow on from the 10,000 planted by volunteers in Leith Links, 3000 bulbs planted by members of the Friends of Montgomery Street Park, and we note that council workers were busy planting thousands more bulbs in Lochend park this week too. All in all, that's going to add up to a lot more flowers next spring.
If you'd like to help plant them - please contact us.
October 13, 2009 by Ally 
In the Meadows area local residents have been voicing their concerns over the use of the Meadows as an events venue for years, and this has now culminated in calls for council officers to develop a city wide Parks Events Strategy. Greener Leith, along with other community groups in the city, have recently been invited by the Friends of the Meadows and Bruntsfield Links to contribute towards a statement they're preparing to give to the officials involved. Apparently this document is set to be considered by councillors in November.
It would seem that a great deal of debate has been focussed on setting firm numbers on the duration, scale and the frequency of events in parks. The Greener Leith committee considered these issues and felt it that it was in fact very difficult to come up with hard a fast rules over what should and should not be permitted.
We are of no doubt that some parks are 'over used,' and for people who live close to over used parks then it is easy to understand the perception that commercial operators are able to clean-up on profits, whilst creating noise, mess and damage to the park, that the local residents have to live with - often for months later.
Nevertheless, there are also parks that would benefit from greater use, and more events. Locally we've seen both sides of this equation. This year, for example, the news that the Mela would return to Pilrig park, generated a degree of concern from local residents over the potential for traffic, litter, noise and long term damage to the park. Changes were made by the organisers to accomodate these concerns, and it would seem little lasting damage resulted, this year at least.
On the other hand, Friends of Parks groups, such as the Friends of Montgomery Street Park are helping to bring their local pocket parks to life by organising events that encourage people into their local park, and perhaps to make more use of it longer term. In fact, the Friends of Montgomery Street park masterplan for improving their park includes more hard standing to make it easier to hold even more events in the park.
Each park is different, with different pressures, and different uses. Therefore, rather than a strategy that establishes hard and fast rules over the number, frequency or duration of events, we propose that responsibility for managing events in parks beyond a certain size is simply devolved to the various local Neighbourhood Partnerships.
If each Neighbourhood partnership had the power to veto events, or impose management conditions on particular events going ahead, then this could provide local democractic oversight over the events that take place in an area. Afterall, neighbourhood partnerships have all the right people around the table - local councillors, local community councillors, representatives from the emergency services, local businesses and local voluntary organisations. Why not give them the power to decide?
October 6, 2009 by Ally 
Between them, community groups in Leith plan to plant more than 10,000 crocus, snowdrop and bluebells in Leith parks this Autumn. That's an incredible undertaking.
Friends of Montgomery Street park plan to plant 3000 mixed crocus bulbs in the park on the 11th of October. Volunteers are set to meet at 10am on the day, and according to their website only a complete deluge will deter the planting from going ahead. Drinks and biscuits are provided for willing workers, and if you have trowels or work gloves please bring them. More information on the event here.
Meanwhile, Leith Links Community Council, together with local schools, and a range of community groups, including Greener Leith are planning to plant more than 7000 bulbs over four days in late October. The community volunteer day is on the 1st of November between 2pm and 4pm. Again, all welcome, and if you have gloves and trowels, please do bring them along. Some time ago Leithers identified more flowers and a greater diversity of planting as something they'd like to see more of as part of our Leith Links Ask consultation about the future of Leith Links. It's great to see Leith Links Community Council put funding in (alongside a contribution from Greener Leith) to get improvements happening in the park.
Lastly, we should also note that the City of Edinburgh Council are also supporting both events by providing tools and staff support.
September 20, 2009 by Ally 
....and don't forget to bring cake!
Action Alerts, Food Friends of Montgomery Street Park 
Greener Leith is a registered Scottish Charity SCO40838 and a company limited by guarantee SC365095