CRAMOND & BARNTON COMMUNITY COUNCIL
Incorporating Cramond, Barnton, Cammo & Quality Street (West)
Minutes (approved) of Meeting held on Thursday 16th October 2014 in Cramond Kirk Millennium Hall
Present: Andrew Mather (Chair), Ian Williamson (Secretary), Peter Scott, Jean Morley, Ross Wilkinson, Percy Feketey, Marion Mitchell and Bert Scott
A total of 15 persons were present, including Cllrs Paterson and Work.
Welcome and introductions
The Chair welcomed those attending and noted apologies from Isla Browning and Jane Neville. He also noted apologies from the Councillor Alastair Shields.
Minutes of the previous meeting
The minutes of the meeting of 18 September 2014 were approved as representing an accurate account of the issues discussed.
Police report
A report covering crime in the community area over September 2014 was provided (the stats sheet tabled names PC Stewart Pollard). A total of 20 crimes had been recorded 6 of which had been solved with the culprits referred to the Procurator Fiscal or Children’s Reporter. The remainder were the subject of ongoing enquiries.
7 of the 20 crimes were recorded as housebreaking notwithstanding the fact that all related to sheds and/or garages. Top end bicycles and motor bikes were the main target. Cracking down on these housebreakings was the main priority for the Community Policing Team. The benefits of Neighbourhood Watch schemes were discussed both as a means of corralling community resilience and as a deterrent to criminal gangs.
Neighbourhood Watch Scotland had a website to which people could refer for more information on how to set up local schemes. Concerns were raised about the continuing incidence of speeding vehicles and the extent to which cars could be identified by the police in circumstances where the record taken of the number plate was incomplete.
It was confirmed that the Police had the capability using a VODS system to interrogate vehicle registrations where the number was incomplete. The nature of the offence would be factored in when deciding how much time and effort would be expended in trying to track down the vehicle.
Presentation on the Planned Changes to Refuse Collection Arrangements
Mr Makanjuola Adebulehin (Mak) of the City of Edinburgh Council described the new kerbside service that is designed to provide a fresh impetus towards delivering the Scottish Governments targets for reducing the volume of waste sent to landfill and achieve the 50% recycling rate target by 2015. This may be seen against the 39% recycling rate returned by the Council last year.
Some of the Cramond and Barnton Community Council area fell within the 2nd phase of the Council’s roll-out programme with the new, grey, bins scheduled to be introduced into the area between 3 and 21 November and the new service starting between 24 November and 5 December.
The last collection of the green bin as the general landfill bin would occur between 17 and 28 November; a sticker will be applied to the bin at that time to confirm its change of use to become the general recycling bin. Items which should be disposed of in the green bin under the new arrangements include, paper, cardboard, empty aerosols, food and drink cans, clean foil, plastic bottles, envelopes and plastic pots, tubs and trays.
In future the blue box was to be used for glass bottles and jars, batteries, small electrical items, textiles.
The new smaller grey bin is intended for landfill.
The questions that followed demonstrated a concern or frustration at the items for which there seemed no clarity about kerbside collection. These included light bulbs and plastic bags and other materials used for carrying food items, including polythene. For those older people who may be reliant on public transport getting to the recycling depots was not a realistic option. Mak agreed to take these concerns away. He did however recommend the use of the Change Works website as an excellent reference point for an A-Z of how to dispose of a whole range of items. (Note if looking for this you will find it via Change Works and look for “Too good to waste” and leep.interactive.co.uk )..
The reliability of the existing kerbside service was also raised. There had been a number of occasions where the service had not turned up on the due date and this then resulted in householders being uncertain about whether to “leave the bin out” or bring it back off the street and then risk missing the pick-up. There was a pleasant call handling service for receiving such complaints but the reassurances given about the bins being collected within 48 hours were often not delivered.
Presentation on the Planned Edinburgh University Project
Peter Scott set the context by referring to the Action Plan that had emerged from the Promenade Survey and how that was informing a range of maintenance works required in the Village and on the foreshore. The approach to the Edinburgh University was in an effort to create a vision as to what the Village and waterfront might look like in the future.
Tahl Kaminer and Tiago Torres Campos from the University’s Architecture and Landscape Design Department provided an outline of the proposed project which was to begin early in the New Year. Both were excited with the prospect of a live project; the three courses would offer different challenges for the students.
A small cohort of Post Graduate students would be focussing on the structural importance of Cramond. They would be visiting the Village in the New Year, probably early February and would be engaging with locals to find out what they were saying about living in the Community and what changes they would wish to see made. They would be attending local meetings to listen to the concerns and aspirations of people living in the community.
The other two courses would be for undergraduates – 1st and 2nd years and were more concerned about landscape architecture and design and understanding the context and value of the landscape. They would be offering ideas about improvements to the landscape and built environment of Cramond Village, Car Park, Waterfront, Promenade and shoreline and the woodlands and greenspace adjoining the Kirkyard.
The product of these efforts might best be seen as longer terms proposals for improvements which could, if this were the will of the Community Council, be used as a lever in discussions with the CEC.
The lecturers gave a commitment to revert to the CC as and when the detailed proposals from the students work were beginning to materialise. The Chair thanked Tahl and Tiago for the enthusiasm they had shown in presenting what was an exciting project.
Planning Report
Peter Scott provided a brief update on recent developments. An expression of concern along with suggestions had been conveyed to the CEC about the recent application for improvement of and extension to the Cockle Mill Cafe at School Brae.
The Cammo planning application remained under consideration by CEC; questions about drainage including concerns which had been raised by SEPA were understood to be under ongoing scrutiny. The CC had received and had responded to a PAN application about a proposed site adjacent to the Maybury Road in proximity to the East Craigs roundabout.
The extent of consultation offered was considered to be inadequate and an outline of what was considered to be appropriate had been given to the CEC and the developers.
Secretary’s Report
The Secretary ran through the written report which had been provided for those attending the meeting. He confirmed that he would be writing again to Lothian Buses about when they expected to be reviewing the routes serving the Cramond and Barnton area.
He reported on the positive and constructive visit which had been made to the Police Scotland Bilston Command and Control Centre – and to the prospect of a more responsive non-emergency service in future.
He pointed to the improvements being made to the website and to the process for alerting “subscribers” to new documents as they were uploaded.
The action plan covering various local issues requiring to be addressed was handed out. Concern was expressed about how much confidence could be given to a list containing so many issues needing to be addressed when virtually all had no time-frame indicated on the list. It was also pointed out that some of the issues had already languished for years.
The Secretary said that the list was part of a new process to bring a rigour to engagement between the CC and the Council where issues were identified as requiring to be addressed. But he accepted that the absence of so many time-frame indications was disappointing and did not instil any sense of urgency. Such timeframe indications did not necessarily need to commit to actual work being carried out – even an indication of timeframe for assessing or evaluating what was required (and what could be done) would be helpful.
He would be pursuing this with his Council contacts. He also went on to set out the proposed process for continuing to develop the action plan which would be a changing document. As issues were addressed so new issues could be brought on but a process for trying to ensure that those being brought on carried the support of the CC and the community was required.
A short list of some possible ideas for new issues would be distributed to all on the global address list with recipients being asked to propose additional issues of concern to them. Periodically the resultant list would be copied out again for people to prioritise the ones of greatest interest/concern to them – and the top ones would be offered on the action plan.
Councillors reports
Lindsay Patterson reported that she had picked up that there was a general feeling among residents in west Edinburgh that they would appreciate knowing more about current strategy and resource planning from senior officers in Police Scotland given concerns about house breaking over the past months. She had invited CI McInarlin to attend or send a representative to the next Almond Neighbourhood Partnership public meeting to address these concerns.
Approval of Constitution
The Chair referred to a governance paper which the CC had received as a template for setting out its constitution. He sought and received assent to the document being adopted as the CC’s constitution. A signed copy would be returned to the Council (and a copy uploaded on the CC website).
Date of Next Meeting
The Chair confirmed that the next meeting of the CC would take place on Thursday 20 November 2014.
Ian Williamson
Secretary
Approved version November 2014