Link for remote attendance at LLCC meeting, Monday 31st August is below:
Secretary LeithLinks invites you to a Microsoft Teams Meeting:
LLCC Meeting
Monday, 31 August 2026
18:30 – 21:00 (GMT)
The Council is currently consulting on proposed parking restrictions all around the Easter Road / Albion Road / St. Clair area. If approved, it means that permits will have to be bought by local residents and businesses, and otherwise parking will have to be paid for, 8:30am-5:30pm Monday-Friday.
Before this scheme is opened for ‘formal’ consultation, feedback is being sought informally from local residents and businesses. I’m assured that the current map and plan is not carved in stone, and that changes to the plans can/will be implemented if local people ask pertinent questions, raise meaningful objections, make sensible suggestions. There is one more drop in session at Norton Park Business Centre, 57 Albion Road, on Thursday 27 August 2026, 2-7pm. Please do go along to find out more and make your views known on the scheme.
There are relatively few residents in the area which is largely occupied by Hibs stadium and Lochend Park, but those that are there are finding it very difficult to park anywhere near their homes due to – apparently – commuter parking and people from out of the area (possibly from the nearby Leith Walk area and Abbeyhill colonies area, which now have a CPZ).
I went along to the drop-in session earlier this week and found it very helpful to talk to the Council officers there about how the whole process works (which will be useful to prepare us for later). At this early stage, the proposal is not a ‘done deal’, it is an information seeking exercise. I found the staff ready to discuss wider / future issues such as knock-on effects on nearby areas, and open to hearing views on these, sooner rather than later. (I was also reassured to hear that although some of the original planning designs were done by a London consultant, the current detailed plans are all done in-house by prople who know the area well, and that they are trying hard to reduce the overall use of consultants.)
There are 6 different local schemes in the same pipeline (known as Phase 2), being dealt with in batches of 2 at a time (priority given to those with highest ‘occupancy’ rate (of available parking spaces, as measured by earlier surveys. ‘High’ occupancy means over 70% of available spaces occupied, ‘Low’ is below 40% of spaces occupied. Averaged across the whole area)
They won’t get around to the third batch (our area) until about February 2027, but it will be helpful for us all to be well prepared in advance. I believe they said that even the first areas on the list won’t be implemented until all 6 have been consulted on, which is helpful as it means that the later ones will not have a slow sequential knock-on effect of overflow parking from the earlier ones (they’ll all have a sudden onslaught at the same time!)
It is really important that residents in the Leith Links area all pay attention to this and have a say in the planning at early stages, so we should pay attention to all of the information and consultation sessions from now on, over the next year.
Leith Links Community Council will be working on behalf of local residents to find out more about peoples views (possibly confusingly mixed…) and potential issues that need bringing to the Council’s attention, so please do get in touch with your thoughts and ideas at any time, via Email: contact@leithlinkscc.org.uk
Read more here: https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/parking/strategic-parking-review-1/3
Sally Millar, Secretary, LLCC
The next meeting of the Leith Links Community Council will be next Monday, 31 August at 6:30pm at Duncan Place, in-person.
The public toilets on Leith Links are now delightfully transformed! (And, importantly, actually open and functioning properly at last!) Make it your mission to drop by and see Leith’s latest artwork as soon as you can. This beautiful mural was painted by Leith artist Shona Hardie, and funded largely by the Council, with a significant contribution from Leith Links Community Council with money donated by the film-makers of Dept.Q TV series, who filmed there (and closed the road for a day!).
If you live or work in the Leith Links area, or own/run a business here, please tell us how you have been affected by the fire on Princes Street, and getting around the town since then? For example, getting to work? Do you use bus/car/ bike/walking more, to replace tram? What is bus travel like, for you? Getting to social/leisure activities? Are customers reaching your business? Or anything else you want to tell us about? Please get in touch asap, so we can pass this on to the Council. Email: contact@leithlinkscc.org.uk
Following our recent AGM, we are pleased to publish here our Annual Report for the past year.
To update you, the current Community Council line-up is as follows:
The current Community Council members are:
Since the most recent CC election (March 2025), our long-standing Chair Person Jim Scanlon MBE has stepped back from the role of Chair due to family pressures (though happily he continues as a Community Council member). Jim is endlessly loyal, determined and very experienced, and has made a massive contribution to the community over the many years, for which we thank him most sincerely.
Sadly, we also recently ‘lost’ another long standing and hard-working CC member, ex Treasurer and Vice-Chair Gail Clapton, who moved out of the area. Both were presented with small thank you gifts.
We have been sent this latest update on the public toilets on Leith Links by Marco Galli, Green Space Development Officer at the Council:
The drainage works on site are now complete. We are carrying out final checks, including topographic survey and CCTV camera investigation survey, to make sure the new drainage network meets the required standard before the toilets can reopen. We are on track to reopen at the beginning of June 2026.
During the construction phase, the contractor encountered a number of unexpected challenges I wanted to make you aware of:
Despite these challenges, our contractor Healthmatic kept the programme on track.
Please note that the temporary toilets have been removed from site. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause in the short term and are working hard to reopen the permanent facility as soon as possible. Several incidents of antisocial behaviour took place, leaving the toilets unsafe and posing a risk to our colleagues who maintained them.
We know the closure has been frustrating and we thank you for your patience. We will keep you updated as we move towards reopening. Please feel free to pass this update on to anyone who may find it useful.
Thank you.
The AGM and next meeting of Leith Links Community Council will be on Monday 25th May, at 6:30pm, at Duncan Place Community Hub, 4 Duncan Place.
There will be a short AGM followed at 7pm by an ‘ordinary meeting’. We have guest speakers Jo Hirst and Doreen Goldie coming to talk about what happens when sewage at Seafield is treated and turned into sludge cake which is spread across local agricultural land as fertilizer and may potentially have a dangerous impact on our food systems, water courses and the wider environment.
We also have a busy ‘general’ agenda of local issues. Do come along and join the discussions – the Community Council would really appreciate more support from local residents.
If you need to join remotely, please use this MS Teams link
Secretary LeithLinks invited you to a Microsoft Teams Meeting, 25 May 18:30
Documents
The next meeting of Leith Links Community Council is on Monday 25 May at 6:30pm. Following a brief AGM and a short break, starting at 7pm we will hold our ‘ordinary’ CC meeting, starting with visiting speakers Jo Hirst and Doreen Goldie to talk about what happens to our sewage, why it may be dangerous, and what regulation and enforcement is necessary.
Everyone knows about the offensive stench that frequently blights the lives of those who live in the vicinity of Seafield Sewage Treatment Centre. However what is not so well known is that after the City’s sewage has been ‘treated’, the resultant sludge cake is spread across local agricultural land as a fertilizer. Many believe that the several contaminants that remain in this ‘treated’ sludge cake represent a serious public health risk. A campaign has been launched to have this practice ‘paused’ until the full facts are made known.
Come to our next meeting on 25th May at 7.00pm at Duncan Place Community Hub to hear more about this campaign and about why there is so much concern about the potential impact on our food systems, water courses and the wider environment.
