CITY LAUNCHES MAJOR CONSULTATION
Anyone who lives, works or studies in Edinburgh is invited to take part in a major Council-organised consultation between now and December.
The aim of the scheme (launched on Tuesday) is to create a ‘2050 Edinburgh City Vision’, coordinating views from across the city to produce a coherent strategy for planning and investment over the next 30 years.
The first draft is scheduled for publication in summer 2017.
Specific workshops, projects and activities will seek opinions from schools, community, minority and interest groups around the capital. Individuals can respond online here.
Serious questions
City of Edinburgh Council’s arm’s-length cheerleaders are dressing up the exercise in a lot of feel-good guff which some readers will find emetic. But don’t be put off by Marketing Edinburgh’s cheesy fixed grins and verbal pompoms.
There are serious questions to address here about Edinburgh’s people, economy and environment – what works, what doesn’t work, and how we’d like to see the city develop in future despite a gaping hole in the finances.
Issues which spring instantly to mind include:
- investment in social housing and state schools
- creating new, secure jobs with decent conditions and remuneration
- preserving and extending parks as public not commercial spaces
- prioritising clean and safe streets over the convenience of motorists
- creating a waste service fit for purpose
- maintaining Edinburgh city centre as a residential and working capital, not a hollowed-out Disneyland of the North addicted to tourists and festivals.
Now, if CEC’s Chief Executive Andrew Kerr is serious about making this a genuine citywide consultation, that's admirable.
Making it matter
The problem is, of course, that for all Kerr’s claims that CEC is merely a facilitator in this, our views will ultimately be recorded, interpreted, evaluated, and coordinated through the bureaucratic lens of local government and its competing strapped-for-cash departments.
Many of us have experienced such processes before, and the results are too often unclear, watered down, or soon afterwards parked forever in the gurgling tripes of City Chambers.
So, whilst we certainly think it’s worth taking part in the City Vision hooplah, we also think that as important will be policing how such views are acknowledged, costed and scheduled for implementation afterwards.
Fine words butter no parsnips.
Got a view? Tell us at spurtle@hotmail.co.uk and @theSpurtle and Facebook
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Lorraine Moore I would add - no more stripping Edinburgh of its heritage and knocking down old buildings!
Paul Burgess Yet another council vision. Through money coated lenses
Brian McNeil I'd like to start with a city that isn't viewed by most residents as corrupt to the core.
Ella Taylor-Smith I'd like to live in a city where the rubbish crisis was sorted, but I'd like that before 2017.