Give us this day...

We're delighted to publish this reflective guest post by local resident Colin Brown. 

Elegance and aggression showed in equal measure over the Water of Leith. Like balletic dancers, black headed gulls would stop, momentarily inert in mid air, the better to judge the value of pursuing their meagre goal, or to perfect their angle of attack.

Wings like tutus, some 60 birds formed graceful, interweaved and ever changing patterns in so small a space that collision seemed inevitable – yet was avoided, save for those who, 6, 8 or 10 at a time, plunged simultaneously for the same prey, landing in an angry cacophony of snapping bills, anticipating a hard won morsel.

The victor moved off sharply, trying to escape the outrage of those who seem to think they’ve been robbed.

The less successful birds surveyed the scene, turned about, leaving the crowd and regrouping, then rapidly re-entering centre stage with fresh determination, delighting, yet confusing the eye of a casual, human, audience.

Here and there a larger herring gull, from a small group of both adults and juveniles, eschewing elegance, made unsubtle but effective pre-emptive strikes, lunging forward before the smaller black-headed gulls (still sporting dark spots behind their eyes, not yet resplendent in their trademark chocolate brown heads) could satisfy their hunger.

On the water’s surface, slightly cowed by the frenetic activity both above their heads and in their midst, swam serenely the mallards, foraging, with surprisingly frequent success, for a small share of what food is on offer.

And in amongst them, the tufted brown head and low slung body of a goosander jerked nervously back and forth as though highly uncertain whether to brave the fray or not. She did, eventually, and emerged with a seemingly unmanageable crust at least the size of her head. With frustrated gulls nipping furiously at her tail feathers, she ran as if on pointe across the water’s surface until able to escape with her find in a more seemly manner.

On the path, behind the railings, close to the sad scar where a stand of small trees has met its end, a dozen or so pigeons, wholly unperturbed by the wheeling, flailing and screeching going on just feet – even inches – away, cooed gently as they hoovered up the crumbs scattered by one of the many Leithers who bring their crusts down to the water, and who set in motion this daily drama.

This is the second guest post by Colin Brown. If you liked this you can read his first one here. 

Thanks to the Comely Banking Crisis for sharing this image on Flickr

Graemac08 also posted this short video clip of birds on the Water of Leith this week: 

The mystery of the disappearing Water of Leith trees

A Greener Leith reader got in touch with us earlier today, concerned that someone was cutting down trees along the water of Leith, just upstream from the Sandport Place bridge. She even sent us a couple of photos.

The mysterious work crew ended up clearing all this by the end of the day: 

Greener Leith has contacted the City of Edinburgh Council press team, who, by 5pm today, could only confirm that the works have nothing to do with the flood prevention works that are taking place upstream. Nobody at the local council neighbourhood office could tell us anything.

We'll update this post, when someone, anyone, can tell us why these trees were chopped...

UPDATE: 

It turns out that the land is owned by the City of Edinburgh Council who commissioned the work after receiving a request from Port of Leith Housing Association, who own the adjacent building. None of the trees removed were protected and no prior permission or consultation was required to be undertaken in advance of the works.  

According to POLHA the trees were interfering with the building structure, and they are willing to work with local residents to improve the area where the trees were removed. 

The work was undertaken one day before HRH Princes Anne visited the Port of Leith Housing Association block of flats. As you can see from one of the comments to this blog post, at least one of the residents who live in the new block are delighted that their view has improved as a consequence of this work. 

Another local resident has also taken a closer look at the area affected and counted 27 stumps from trees that have been removed. 

@greenerleith Counted 27 stumps approx A few have been large treessome smallish Numerous chopped down shrub clumps Watch this space ?

— Mary Graham (@bloomingartist) January 13, 2012

Flood Prevention on the Water of Leith

Greener Leith has received a number of appeals to support a recent campaign to prevent trees being cut down along the Water of Leith as part of the ongoing flood prevention work. You can find the petition here.  

Greener Leith volunteers have been so focussed on our Energyshare bid, that we haven't had a chance to come to a view either way on the issue.

Juliet Wilson is an Edinburgh writer, and volunteer for the Water of Leith Conservation Trust. She probably has a better overview than many on this issue. This post is written by her and originally appeared on her Crafty Green Poet blog. It was written after she attended a public meeting which was held in Stockbridge library, which gave the contractors a chance to respond to some of the concerns raised by the campaigners.  

Crafty Green Boyfriend and I were at last night's public meeting at Stockbridge Library to hear about the tree felling associated with the flood prevention work along the Water of Leith.

The Water of Leith Conservation Trust have worked with the contractors of the flood prevention team to ensure that the natural environment would be as little damaged as possible as a result of the work. The trust have been really good at sharing information about the flood prevention plans with volunteers. The trust, Edinburgh City Council and the contractors have regularly updated people who live in the affected areas.

However, when I recently saw the felled trees along parts of the river and read about how many trees in total are going to be felled I panicked more than a little bit. I didn't remember the discussions or plans ever indicating this amount of tree felling. The same point was brought up by several people at the public meeting. The council engineer and the contractor at the meeting didn't actually approach people's concerns in the best way.

Rather than directly and immediately addressing the issue about trees, they chose to give a presentation about the history of the flood prevention plans. They went into a lot of detail, which was interesting, but anyone who has been in Edinburgh and concerned about the flood prevention plans over the last ten years or so, would be aware of the outline of these plans and though it was useful to hear it again, it lead to a lot of impatience in the room. The presentation did highlight the fact that if flood defences are to be built alongside the Water of Leith in the centre of Edinburgh, then in most places there is not the room to allow for natural flood prevention measures.

The river is closely bound by housing, offices, roads and gardens along much of its course in central Edinburgh. One area that was a potential sink for flood waters has had housing built on it since the flood prevention plans were first put forward, despite the council overturning the plans, the Scottish Government had stepped in and said the housing should go ahead (housing built on a flood plain in times of increasing floods and rising sea levels?!). So that is a problem that could have been avoided.

Another problem is that Scottish Rugby Union who have their ground at Murrayfield by the river, would not allow the council to use part of their fields as natural flood defences, despite it being ideal for the purpose (I've spoken to an engineer on the project who is puzzled to say the least about that decision, which was upheld by the Scottish Government I think). Most parts of the river in central Edinburgh, as I say, though don't have potential for natural flood prevention measures.

Mathematical modelling was used to decide what degree of flood protection was needed. The design chosen will protect against the effects of a once in 200 year flood incident (remember that with the changing climate what is now a one in 200 year event in the future becomes much more likely). The plan is that existing walls near the river are to be knocked down, metal barriers are to be sunk to a great depth below where these walls ran and then the walls are to be rebuilt in concrete and then clad in stone of the same type as the original stone.

The river will not be canalised (apart from areas where it already canalised), as in most cases the walls don't run exactly alongside the riverbank but are at a distance. This is where the problem with the trees come in. The work in fitting the metal barriers and replacement walls needs access. Trees get in the way unfortunately. The trees that get in the way are being removed. Lots of trees. This is really upsetting and a great loss to local biodiversity.

However, if we are to prevent floods then this work needs to be done (though obviously it would have been better if housing and offices had never been built on a floodplain in the first place....). When the work is completed, all the trees will be replaced - two new trees will be planted for every tree that is removed. (Why the contractor and the spokesperson from the council didn't say this right at the start of the meeting, I don't know. It would have prevented some of the bad feeling that run through most of the meeting, judging from the delighted reactions from some people in the room to hearing this announcement).

The trees will be planted with the help of the Water of Leith Conservation Trust and with local residents associations, who have been closely consulted all along the way. (Some people at the meeting have had their houses flooded and had nothing but praise for the way that the contractors were involving them in the future restoration of the trees). Of course these trees will grow slowly, and it will be years before the area is back to its current beauty, which is really sad.

However, given the circumstances I do think that everyone involved is doing the best they can.

You can find other posts by Juliet on the Greener Leith blog here. 

Photo credit: Elemental Paul

Early images of West Bowling Green Street plan

We're very grateful to Hackland+Dore Architects Limited, from Annandale Street, for supplying us with an early consultation leaflet about the proposed SMARTS development at West Bowling Green Street. 

The images in the leaflet that we reproduce here will help to give people an idea of what is proposed for the site. 

The developers are looking for comments on their proposals in advance of them putting in a full planning application to the council. You can view a leaflet with more info by clicking here.

You can also find more details about the proposals in this earlier blog post.

What do you think?

You can let them know your thoughts by email. Send them to: admin@hackland-dore.com

If you send in a comment, please do send Greener Leith a copy too: justask@greenerleith.org

You can meet the developers in person at a public meeting scheduled for 4.30pm-7.30pm on Wednesday the 23rd of November in the Ebeneezer United Free Church at 31, Bangor Road. 

We should also congratulate the developers for doing more than the bare minimum in pre-application consultation, and providing and sharing electronic consultation materials. 

Other developers should take note. Having already raised the poor quality of some pre-application notice consultation processes that developers make in meetings with council planning officials, Greener Leith committee members have been invited to a consultation on the matter with Scottish Ministers keen to improve on the current system.

Early plans for 113 new homes on West Bowling Green Street

View Larger Map

Councillors are due to consider a "proposal of application notice," for a big development proposal by building firm Smarts next week.

Whilst we're not quite clear where the site boundaries begin and end, here's the description in the council report: 

"At this stage only indicative proposals have been prepared, consisting of around 117 residential units and 5 commercial units.

These show a main block arranged around a central courtyard area, shown as open space, which incorporates undercroft parking accessed from West Bowling Green Street.

The block is up to 5 storeys high dropping to 4 on the side fronting the Water of Leith. Ground floor commercial space is incorporated into the proposal along the frontage of Anderson Place and the corner of West Bowling Green Street."

The eastern section of the site has five 3 storey town houses with off-street parking and private gardens. To the south of this is a small shared garden area.

The northern section has a 5 storey block set back from West Bowling Green Street to enable car parking spaces and curving round to match the route of the river.

The proposals also make provision for a walkway following the Water of Leith."

For large developments like this the developers must conduct public consultation before they submit a full planning application to the council. We've been in touch with the developers to ask them for electronic versions of their consultation materials - afterall indicative plans and images have clearly been produced - but so far we've only received confirmation of the public meeting dates. 

The public meetings are to take place at the Ebenezer United Free Church, 31 Bangor Road on Wednesday 16th November 2011 and on Wednesday 23rd November both at 4.30-7.30 pm.

If you live locally, or have in interest in the cycle paths, or the Water of Leith in that area, it may be worth going along to give your views on the proposal. 

If you do go along - we'd love to hear your thoughts on the proposals. 

West Bowling Green Street PAN

Council employee of the century

Some Greener Leith members have very long memories. And for as long as our collective memory goes back, we've always been told that it would be impossible to properly surface the stretch of path that links the Water of Leith Walkway with West Bowling Green Street. So we gave up asking ages ago.

For years, this narrow, badly maintained pathway has been a muddy puddle jump after a downpour and source of frustration to regular users of wheeled objects, or delicate footwear, who wish to get around this particular part of the neighbourhood.

Recently, a local resident Jonathan got in touch with us to ask what he could do to try to get the path improved, and he sent us this photo, below, to illustrate how the path had become so weathered as to be almost dangerous in places.

With a modicum of skepticism, we suggested he contact the relatively new Neighbourhood Manager for Leith and the City Centre, Mike Penny, and we asked him to copy us into his email correspondence. 

Remarkably, with no need for focus groups, consultation, external fundraising, or political lobbying, Mr Penny simply wrote back a few days later to inform Jonathan that he's managed to add this short section of path to an existing job some contractors are doing elsewhere for the council and hey presto - the path will be improved. Indeed, we understand it will be bought up to the same standard as the rest of the path network.

Lately, we feel that we've been doing a lot of complaining about things like Biomass plants, and the state of Leith Walk. It is therefore refreshing to be able to offer some unreserved thanks for a council manager, and his team, who respond quickly and make environmental improvements happen. In celebration, here is a small picture of Mr Penny that we found on the internet.

Whilst we haven't traditionally given awards to council officers in the past, it may be time to open up a new category for this year.

If you have had any good experiences with local council staff, let us know in the comments below.

A miscellany of neighbourhood notices in July

Here's some photos of things that other people want you to know. 

The Dog Watch

Some anonymous people are setting up an email newsletter for local pet lovers. To sign-up they want you to email: woof-woof@virginmedia.com

Open Air Youth Club

The council is running open air youth clubs in King George V Park and Victoria Park. They're very exciting. You can tell by the number of exclamation marks in the poster.

Craigroyston FC

In St Marks Park, Craigroyston have got a series of pre-season games lined up.

Planning Graffiti

On the side of a development by Port of Leith Housing Assocation next to the Water of Leith, there's some planning graffiti. You don't see that very often.

It's an interesting coincidence that The Port of Leith Housing Association objected to the Biomass plant, just like the person who wrote the graffiti, so it will be interesting to see how quickly they remove it.

Fit As A Monkey

On Leith Links, there's a few new fitness clubs starting up. There's the one above, which seems determined to transform as many of Leith's fertile women folk into monkeys, and there's this one:

According to the organisers of the Sensation Bootcamp, "It is as much fun as it sounds." Quite.

Feel free to send us your photos of neighbourhood notices.

Bonnington Bridge Bar builders dumping in Water of Leith again

In August last year, the owners of the Bonnington Bridge Bar got in trouble with the law after getting caught on camera dumping their waste in the Water of Leith. You can read about that here.

Well it turns out they didn't learn their lesson. Rather than figuring out a way to dump their waste in a legal way, they just decided to try and hide their dumping under the road bridge. How do we know? Well these photos sent to us last week by an anonymous, male, eyewitness, prove it. 

In addition to the fact that the owners have continued to allow dumping of waste in the river, it looks as though the extent of the modifications they've made to the bank on the river may go someway beyond what they originally applied to build. 

You can see the plan of what they got permission to build in the image below.

You can see from the plan that the developers indicated that the "indigenous vegetation" would be left between the terrace and the river. Sadly, it would seem that this has mostly been obliterated, and a whole, secondary retaining wall has been built closer to the river. This retaining wall doesn't feature in the plan above at all.  

We've said it before, and we'll say it again. It's truly depressing that private developers such as these guys are so happy to dump stuff in the Water of Leith, when literally thousands of volunteer hours are donated by Edinburgh residents, to keep it clean, tidy and good for wildlife.

Time for another visit from the Environmental Wardens? Not that that prospect will likely bother owner Norrie Rowan, who is apparently no stranger to run ins with the authorities. 

He got into trouble with the Health and Safety Executive over the way this site was managed last August, and was quoted in the Evening News about the same time saying: 

"I'd build things, then ask for planning permission. I once had T-shirts printed with "Ask For Forgiveness, Not For Consent" and I sent one to the then assistant head of building control at the council. He told me he'd wear it on his holidays." 

So that's good then.

We have reported this issue to the authorities via Fix My Street. You can see other local issues that people have reported recently on this page here.