Last month we featured local David Watt's article on the unruly Rodney Street triangle – a tangled and overgrown 'dumping ground' crying out for some attention (Issue 214).
Watt suggested retaining the central tree and inserting a bench, or, alternatively, using the space to store the wheelie bins which currently block pavements hereabouts.
Now another Spurtle reader has made contact with a plea of his own. Eric Robertson agrees that the triangle's current state is deplorable, although admits it was scruffy before gaswork contractors temporarily used it for storage.
'It would be sad,' he writes, 'if it were simply seen as serving as a wheelie bin base. Cities – especially grey Edinburgh – need green spaces to bring them alive and it is quite amazing how even a small, imaginative intervention can bring interest and beauty.'
By way of example, he cites the 'tiny sliver of a border' at the junction of Albany and Broughton Streets which has been 'transformed by colourful planting and regular care'.
The Rodney Street triangle should be planted with easy-to-manage shrubs and perennials, he suggests. With Council guidance, he wonders whether it could even be the first in a series of minor gardening projects for neighbourhood volunteers.
Spurtle remembers the ongoing success of the Barony Community Garden opened in August 2009 (Issue 173). Might the organisation behind that initiative – the Broughton Project Group – be interested in taking on a new challenge? We will enquire.