5th November is Portobello Organic Market day!

In addition to all your regular stalls selling mouth-watering seasonal and organic food, plus local and up-cycled arts and crafts, there will be six new traders attending this month:

Whitmuir Organics offer local farm-made organic terrine, pate, cooked ham, beef, bacon, quiche, vegetables, and eggs. They will also have bread rolls from their new community-supported bakery;

Maddy Corbin will be selling Scotch eggs (meat and vegetarian), cheese biscuits, sausage rolls, unusual preserves, and traditional handmade crepe paper christmas crackers;

Fare will be on site selling beautiful ready-to-cook organic meals and Christmas puddings this month;

Wood N Menagerie produce wooden gifts, ornaments and toys hand crafted from joinery off-cuts and other recycled materials;

Changeworks Zero Waste volunteers will be on hand to give you free friendly advice on how to reduce your waste;

And Portobello Swim Centre will be promoting membership deals that can help you reduce your waist.

At the PEDAL stall we’ll be selling our Porty branded t-shirts (two designs, ‘I Love Porty’ and ‘Home Sweet Home’). Various colours and sizes are available.

Where: Brighton Park, Brighton Place, Portobello

When: 9.30am  —  1.30pm

Full list of stallholders for November 5th.

Big Things on the Prom

Super Portobello group Big Things on the Beach have a great record of running community arts events. In 2008 and 2009 they ran major exhibitions of outdoor artwork in people’s gardens and around Portobello – the Garden Gallery, last year they had (what I thought was a Planet of the Apes inspired) artwork on the beach called “Black Swan”.

On Sunday they ran a Welcome event as part of the run up to the Cultural Olympiad. Called the Big Welcome it involved groups making tablecloths a fair and even ceilidh dancing on the prom!

I hope these photos give a flavour of the day… it’s worth saying that Big Things on the Beach also have a great track record of providing stunning weather for their events!

Portobello and Leith team up to harness wind power

The recession that followed the banking collapse of 2008 has demonstrated the fragility of the funding that community groups have relied on to deliver services.

Two groups – one in Portobello and one in Leith are looking for your support to put funding on a more sustainable footing. To support them you can join this group.

Where there was a steady (if not infrequently unreliable) stream of funding available from a mix of funders, much of this has dried up. Many Local Authorities and the NHS have reduced or discontinued their funding to community groups, endowed funds and trusts have had their portfolios reduced by decline and unpredictability the stock market, and the remaining funders have had to focus on the areas of highest need to replace other sources of funding.

It is more vital than ever before that community groups seek dedicated and self-generated funds. Some of this can be done through trading and some through more aggressive fundraising. But the major opportunity for communities is in harnessing renewables.

There are plenty of great stories about communities like Eigg or Fintry that have used wind power to generate funds for their communities. But there are very few examples of this happening in an urban context. Community groups in Portobello and Leith have got together to break new ground in urban renewables in Scotland. Greener Leith and PEDAL -> Portobello Transition Town have put together a joint bid for funding for a wind turbine.

You can read more about it here.

It is really important that communities get control of this resource. It is an opportunity to get community control of one of the few remaining commons that hasn’t been subjected to corporate ownership and the profit motive.

We’d really like to get funding for this. But we’re hampered by the reduction in funding available to community groups, and the reluctance of the banks to invest in renewables, when they could be supporting tar sands development or cluster bombs instead.

So we’d love it if you went to the EnergyShare website and supported our project. It will help to support the community in Leith and Portobello, but more importantly it will create a valuable precedent for other urban groups wanting to take ownership of the natural resources offered by wind power.

How Edinburgh Council risks Squandering £168k

On the old ward based statistics, Craigmillar was the most deprived area in the East of Scotland. Years of economic decline compounded by high levels of drug use and unemployment left a legacy of multiple deprivation.

You can imagine the surprise of community representatives when we discovered that the area has over £168,000 of its Fairer Scotland Fund allocation that will be almost impossible to spend by the March 2011 deadline. It will be even more of a surprise to find that the Council-appointed Neighbourhood Manager was suggesting that this money would be either difficult or impossible to spend as any project would have to be commissioned using a tendering process that takes around 6 months. Astonishingly this can apply to sums as small as £5000. It must apply to sums over £10,000.

This means that many tendering processes will cost more than the grant itself. It’s preposterous. It’s a complete waste of council resources, and the resources of the organisations that have to tender for this. It could only be bone-headed stupidity or a cynical attempt to ensure that the money cannot be spent on dealing with need in Portobello. I assume that the unspent money will go back to Council to cover its incompetence elsewhere.

The Neighbourhood Partnership met on Wednesday this week. It’s responsible for allocating Fairer Scotland Fund moneys. This Fund is to be used to support work in places with severe area deprivation, like Craigmillar. But instead we were told (with an extraordinarily straight face) by the senior official that we wouldn’t be able to spend it because Edinburgh Council’s Director of Finance wouldn’t let him.

I’ve been a member of the Neighbourhood Partnership for 3 years now. The genuine difference made by the Partnership is hard to see. Broadly speaking it is official-led, with Community representatives sidelined by Council employees. It was unable to do much when the Education departments decided to close the excellent Instep project, which helped children adjust to High School.

The gigantic underspend is exacerbated by the fact there is so much need in Craigmillar. The money could and should have been spent on a variety of projects that could have saved the Council and other public services substantial sums of money. Instead it is being hoarded by the Council and their ludicrously over-wrought approach to tendering. Money that could have saved lives is instead filling Council coffers.

There is an urgent need for all public authorities to review their use of tendering. Since its introduction as a Thatcherite tool for giving public subsidy to the private sector public officials have become obsessed with its use. There may be circumstances where very large sums are involved and it is appropriate. But even the Scottish Government does not recommend its use for projects under £50,000. In these circumstances grants are much more efficient and effective.

The cynical might suggest that Edinburgh’s Director of Finance has set down these rules to ensure an underspend. Money not spent could be reallocated to the Council’s financial black hole. I’m sure that’s not the case. But along the way they’ve wasted a vast amount of money and time on wildly bureaucratic tendering processes. And that time and money has been diverted from the vital work done by voluntary sector groups fighting inequality and improving lives in Craigmillar.

There’s a simple answer here. Waive the ludicrous rules on tendering, and allow groups to apply for funds up to £50,000 as a grant. It’ll be cheap and effective and will result in vital funds being used to meet need, not line a Council bank account.

Portobello Car Free Day: 19th September

PEDAL – Portobello Transition Town are planning to hold the 4th annual Portobello Car Free Day 2010

Sunday 19^th September 1.30 – 4pm

Bottom of Bath Street, near the Prom

including…….

Dress up your Bike workshop – Friday 17^th September 2-4pm

Ashpits, Towerbank Primary School – £2 donation

A chance for kids and adults to recycle willow, cardboard, plastic, and other materials to turn your bike into a bike worth parading!

 

 

Bike Parade – Sunday 19^th September 1.30pm

Meet at the Prom end of Kings Road at 1.15 to set off at 1.30pm: first visiting the proposed community turbine site, then taking a child friendly back street route via Adelphi Place and Rosefield Avenue to the bottom of Bath Street.

Car Free Day Street party – Sunday 19^th September 2-4pm

Bottom of Bath Street  by the Prom (and also Straiton Place between Bath Street and Regent Street if the residents want to have a street party).

Stalls will include:

–       PEDAL Food and Energy stalls, and Transport stall with questionnaire

–       Spokes Bike Campaign stall

–       Food and Bric a brac stalls, etc.

–       Lothians and Borders Police security marking bikes

–       Tyre planting – grow food in a tyre (especially for those with no gardens)

–       If you want to hold a stall (e.g. to raise money for your local good cause, then let us know).

We hope to have quiet acoustic music and to have Cosybike back again this year, and hope to end with a Storybike journey for those who want, leaving Bath Street for Leith at 4pm and hearing stories of Portobello and Leith on the way.

Portobello Organic Market

In an exciting new development PEDAL will be starting Portobello Organic Market in Brighton Park on Saturday, 4th of September and the first Saturday of every month thereafter.

This will be a new event in Portobello. It’s not to be missed! There will be up to 20 market stalls selling mostly organic food, though we are also interested in local crafts if anyone would like to have a go at selling their goods. Stalls cost £50, though folk are welcome to share stalls and split the cost between them.

If you are interested in running a stall, we’d be very pleased to hear from you. Please read our Stallholders’ Policy which you can find on the Portobello Organic Market page of the PEDAL website

We also need a small army of volunteers to help set up and take down the stalls, steward the event, and tidy the site afterwards, so we’d be very grateful for any help, even if you can only give us an hour. Please please get in touch if you can help.

If you have any questions – or want to book your place as a volunteer early to avoid disappointment  – please get in touch with Polly Cooke or Peter Upton on 0131 258 4483 or 0131 258 4483 or email us polly@pedal-porty.org.uk & peter@pedal-porty.org.uk

Portobello gets £72,000 for Community Energy Project

 Portobello’s plans to produce and sell its own green electricity have taken a step forward with the announcement of a £72,000  grant.

The  award from the Scottish Government’s Communities and Renewable Energy Scotland scheme is to pay for legal and planning costs in establishing a community owned wind turbine on the Promenade.

The wind turbine would be the first commercial-scale community power project in any Scottish city. It is being run by PEDAL –> Portobello Transition Town, a community group which seeks to promote local action on climate change by working with people in Portobello to develop environmentally-friendly goods and services.

How the turbine could look viewed from the foot of Pipe Lane.

When operational, the Seafield turbine will generate electricity for homes and businesses in the east of Edinburgh.

Project Manager Tom Black said “If it does go ahead, it could bring real benefits by reducing carbon emissions, bringing in money that would be made available for local projects, and raising awareness of the renewable energy resources that Edinburgh has on it’s doorstep.”

Today’s award will enable PEDAL to carry out a range of technical studies and seek planning permission, plus legal agreements with landowners.

The grant comes from the Communities and Renewable Energy Scotland (CARES) scheme, which is administered by national charity Community Energy Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Government. The CARES scheme offers grants and technical advice to community organisations to help with the installation of a variety of renewable energy technologies.

The turbine being considered would be 47.5 metres from the base to the tip of the blade. If planning permission is granted, PEDAL will seek a bank loan to meet the £470,000 costs involved in buying and constructing the turbine.

Another Attack on Portobello High St – Another Chance to Object

The owners (Aegon Asset Management) of the former Big W site at Milton Link have applied for planning permission to turn it into a 24 hour superstore.  You might think it is too far away from Portobello to have an impact but there can be no doubt with recent closures that the high street is struggling.  Concerns are as follows:

Impact on existing small traders
Even a small amount of trade lost by an independent trader could result in a severe negative impact on its business.  A new foodstore here would be likely to engage in a price war with Asda, resulting in small local shops being caught in the crossfire and being forced to close. Therefore the potential effect on other local shops in the vicinity, as well as those in Portobello High Street, could threaten the vitality and viability of this local shopping centre.

Lack of need for the superstore
As this site is extremely close to Asda and only a short distance away from many other supermarkets, for example, Tesco, Lidl, Aldi, Marks and Spencer, Scotmid, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons, there is no need for another food store in the area.  We thought this at the time of the original campaign against the superstore and now there are even more in the area!

Traffic and parking problems
The traffic generated by a food store would be greater than that generated by the previous use, especially as the plan is for 24 hour operation.  The Milton junction is already over capacity and there are plans in the offing for a new housing development at Newcraighall which would add significantly to the traffic problems in the area.

Customers in a hurry wanting to pick up a small number of items would be tempted to park in Brunstane Road South in order to avoid having to negotiate the Milton junction.  This would add to the existing parking problems caused by commuters using the railway station at Brunstane.

Impact on residential amenity
There would be a negative impact on residential amenity from  increased in traffic around the site, noise pollution from 24 hour operation and traffic generated by customers and deliveries; light pollution in residential properties and litter.

The application has not yet been advertised in the local press but if it is advertised this Friday, the closing date for  objections will be Friday 23 July.

To see further information about the application, such as the traffic an retail impact. please go to www.edinburgh.gov.uk, go to the planning portal and look for application no: 10/01663/FUL.

If you wish to object, please write to John Bury, Head of Planning, e-mail: john.bury@edinburgh.gov.uk

(Thanks to Diana Cairns and Caroline Hosking for notification)

Fire Under the Stars

If you’re free this Sunday evening, why not come down to Portobello for an evening of songs and stories with an environmental theme? Eric is a great singer songwriter and storyteller. It’ll be great!

Environmental songs, stories and humour with Eric Maddern
We became human sitting round a fire under the stars. We are now burning up the planet. We are a miracle in the Universe yet we are undermining our survival and the survival of the Garden of Eden that is our lovely, lonely, living Planet Earth.
This show is a bold, inspiring, hopeful and heart-warming take on the big picture and the step up we must make.
Eric Maddern is an Australian born storyteller, singer-songwriter and author
St. James’ Church hall, Rosefield Place
Sunday June 20th 7.30pm
Suggested donation: £5
Suitable for all aged 10 upwards.

After the show there will be a chance to find out how you can get involved in PEDAL’s latest food and energy projects (for those who live locally – non-Portobello-ites welcome!)



Portobello Wins Decision on Waste Transfer Site

Portobello has won the Appeal over whether to place a waste transfer site in the middle of the area’s residential heart. Viridor, who wanted to build the site had appealed the City Council Planning Committee’s decision to refuse the development. Everyone will be pleased at this. The potential for the waste-transfer station to ruin the lives of people living in Portobello is hard to overstate.

The Portobello community rallied round to raise over £30 000 to fight the appeal. Many thanks are due to Diana Cairns who led the spledidly-named Portobello Opposes New Garbage Station (PONGS) which raised the money for the appeal, and to Suzanne McIntosh who led the witnesses at the appeal, and was terrific in giving evidence at the Public Inquiry. Thanks are also due to all the people who worked so hard to prepare evidence for the appeal.  Delivering a precognition was a nerve-wracking experience, as I can attest. But we were given confidence by Suzanne and Douglas Armstrong the QC who represented the community. All three Councillors supported the community very well in the process.

It’s a great victory for the community. But we have to hope that we can keep beating off threats like this and the superstore. Unfortunately the Council’s planning department has a worrying track record of recommending approval for destructive schemes like this.

VIRIDOR DECISION