NEIGHBOURHOOD PARTNERSHIP FACES CRITICISM
Spurtle has nothing against Leith.
We love it. We visit it daily and report aspects of it which are relevant to Broughton on a regular basis.
However, we have long been frustrated by City of Edinburgh Council’s particular designation of the area – a bureaucratic convenience of its own invention – which has been leaching further and further beyond Leith’s historical boundaries for the last ten or more years. (Zoom in on the map here.)
This approach flatters to deceive. It dresses up an administrative, top-down way of thinking as a celebration of cultural diversity. The appearance of ‘Welcome to Leith’ signs in Greenside is a nonsense which is entirely at odds with the Council’s much vaunted respect for place, community and neighbourhood.
This frustration is one of the reasons we were interested to hear of Bonnington-based Diane Adams’s constructive criticism of the Leith Neighbourhood Partnership last week. She addressed it to Ian Buchanan (City Centre and Leith Neighbourhood Manager) and we now reprint it (with her permission) in full below.
Dear Sir
I am e-mailing re my concerns about the operation and administration of the Leith Neighbourhood Partnership.
I have several concerns:
- The notifications of meetings for this neighbourhood partnership are very poor indeed, and certainly there are far better practices evidenced by other NPs in Edinburgh. There have been Twitter exchanges regarding the fact that the date/time/place etc. of future meetings are not displayed on the web-page. Eventually, a note has been added (in very small font size) under the ‘downloads’ tab, which does not really seem, even now, a very appropriate way of advertising what is in effect a public meeting.
- I can find no forward notice of the meetings (e.g. for the remainder of the year, and no links to papers for past meetings including agendas and minutes), and no papers posted even for the next meeting on 24 May. Compare this to the City Centre NP meeting on 26 May which is given prominent notice on their webpage, as indeed are the dates of all future meetings for this year.
- You will be aware that the Leith Neighbourhood Partnership extends well beyond the boundaries of ‘Leith’. And yet the whole focus is on ‘Leith’. Its about ‘Leith Branding’, ‘£eith Decides’, ‘Leith Community Grants’ and so on.
- The pot of money for ‘£eith Decides’ has been doubled, effectively being the main method of distributing funds to community groups throughout the Partnership area.
The whole is very concerning. I feel partly disenfranchised by these issues.
I feel the lack of availability of meeting notes/agendas/minutes is shocking. I feel the wholly Leith bias leaves people who live in the partnership area but not in Leith at a serious disadvantage as they may be unaware ‘£eith Decides’ relates to them, or that in fact the partnership is supposed to cover areas as diverse as parts of Broughton, Abbeyhill Colonies, and the area north of the Water of Leith at Bonnington. This will result in a skewed distribution of the available funds both from nominations and from votes.
I feel this is wholly inappropriate and some consideration needs to be given to address what I feel is a democratic deficit. The name could be changed to reflect better the area that is represented by the partnership.
I also feel the communication on the Leith NP website is pretty disgraceful.
I hope you will give these matters your earliest consideration.
Regards
Diane Adams
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Brian McNeil Give The Peoples' Republic back their independence.
After all, who in their right mind wants the mandarins of CEC running their town?
Michael Traill Ward boundaries are not set by the council, nor are their names. Recently a national consultation took place about such boundaries and the final recommendations, with changed to various Edinburgh wards will go before ministers for consideration.
NP boundaries follow ward boundaries of two wards. When looking at NPs city wide it is logical for wards 12 & 13 to be grouped together.
Perhaps this Diane Adams could suggest an alternative name for the Leith NP, Leith Decides etc?
@MTraill @adamrmcvey @theSpurtle @CityCentreLeith thanks Michael. As u say, boundary not our issue but papers & meeting dates need sorted.
Bri Forsyth There's no requirement that neighbourhood planning partnerships follow ward boundaries. What we have in Edinburgh is simply the outcome of a decision taken by the community planning partnership. There is an expectation that these partnership areas reflect 'natural communities', which doesn't seem to be the case here. Having said all that, I look forward to seeing Trinity, a historic part of the Burgh of Leith, annexed to this partnership area, £eith banners and all - sure the good people of Trinity would welcome this.