Scottish Water notify community of works which may generate odour

Update: At 11:54 on Friday 24/4/20 Scottish Water informed Leith Links Community Council that the planned works have now been completed.

Scottish Water have today given our community notice of their intention to carry out cleaning works at Seafield on Thursday 22 April 2020. The planned works have the potential to cause nuisance & intrusive odours to affect air quality in our community.

The advance warning has been given following the recent apology issued to our community by Scottish Water & Veolia following a spike in complaints of odour nuisances from local residents.

Bill Elliot, Scottish Waters Stakeholder Development Manager (Scotland) today released the following email:

At the end of March I updated you on tank cleaning activities at Seafield.  Work within the storm tanks was called to a halt after two of the four tanks had been drained and cleaned.  The residual material was left insitu and covered with treated final effluent.  Following a reassessment of the plant operating conditions and associated mitigation measures, the storm tank cleaning will recommence on Thursday 23rd April.  Every effort will be made to complete this work as quickly as possible and to minimise odour, with odour reducing additives being deployed as necessary.

 

I would be grateful if elected members and the Community Council could help and share this message locally so that we can ensure as wide a reach as possible.Note: A copy of this communication can also be found on our website – https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/seafield

Scottish Water & Veolia issue apology for Seafield stench

Leith Links Community Council has received 37 reports relating to odours from Seafield since 1 April 2020.

 

The community in the Leith Links area has been plagued for years by nuisance & intrusive foul odours from Seafield however, earlier this year it was announced that a multi million pound investment in the Seafield site would likely lead to a reduction in the amount of foul odours affecting our community.

 

Members of our community have been using our website to tell us, local politicians and the authorities how their quality of life has been impacted, some examples are;

 

It made it difficult to breathe and I felt nauseous. Had to close our windows.

 

Had to come in from garden, one of few pleasures in lockdown.

 

Couldn’t exercise and ruined our only time outdoors during the lockdown had to close windows and couldn’t even stand to be in our own garden.

 

It made me feel sick.

In response to recent complaints, followed up by Leith Links Community Council, an apology was issued by Bill Elliot, Stakeholder Development Manager (Scotland), Scottish Water on 15 April 2020.

 

Dear Seafield Stakeholders,

 

 

We have received an increase in odour complaints in the Seafield area recently and Scottish Water and Veolia apologise for this.

 

 

Veolia began essential maintenance of the storm tanks at Seafield WWTW at the start of the current lockdown period. This work was paused as a result of a change in weather conditions and, in consultation with regulators, it was agreed that it would be sensible to complete the remaining essential maintenance at the earliest opportunity.

 

 

In order to mitigate the odour risk that continues until this maintenance is complete, we will take further operational measures over the coming days – including using chemical dosing – in order to help minimise the issue.

 

 

Please be assured we will have this resolved as quickly as possible and we will update stakeholders when this work will be carried out and completed.

 

We thank our customers for their patience.

 

Leith Links Community Council public meetings move online

The next meeting of Leith Links Community Council in public will take place on Monday 6 April 2020 from 18:30 on Zoom.Image may contain: 3 people, screen

Following a successful trial meeting earlier this evening our public meetings will now be held on the Zoom online platform until further notice.

Members of our community are invited to join the meeting to watch & listen to proceedings.

Usually at our meetings we encourage public participation throughout the meetings but due to the nature of Zoom we need to change how we manage our meetings. This means at this first online public meeting that participation of the community will be limited but please do bear with us.

The required papers for the meeting are as below;

To take part in the meeting we’ll share a link on our website & social media, click on the link to take part.

New Steads Place development plans published

Developers have published information about their new intentions to develop Steads Place.

The new proposals have been lodged with City of Edinburgh Council by Drum and CAMVO 123 Ltd and can be viewed here.

The proposals follows on from Drums previous development plans for the site which were refused by City of Edinburgh Council. Drum went on to lodge an appeal with an unelected Scottish Government official, that appeal was dismissed.

Leith Links Community Council shows a significant interest in large scale developments such as this, and we will consider our response in due course.

 

Seafield – Stakeholder Update

Notification from Scottish Water of work being carried out at Seafield. If there are any odour issues please report them through the Community Council website

Further to the update we issued last week this is being sent to confirm cleaning work on the primary settlement tank is ongoing at Seafield WwTW. In addition, given the current dry conditions, a decision has been taken to utilise the contractor and other resources on site to clean the storm tanks. It is vitally important these works are carried out without delay, whilst this contractor has available manpower.

 

Veolia and its contractors are working to complete this work as quickly as possible given the current favourable weather conditions. However, please note onshore winds are forecast for a few days from tomorrow onwards. We would be grateful for continuing community support to share this message locally to provide assurance efforts continue to complete this work as quickly as possible and to minimise odour risk where possible.

Coronavirus updates

As a Community Council we have taken the decision not to provide, or attempt to provide, rolling updates on the current Coronavirus situation.

As a group of volunteers we lack the time to be able to gather & share the numerous updates published each day by a variety of organisations. We are very keen to avoid circulating information that may be incomplete or no longer applicable.

Instead, we will provide very local updates as usual such as Leith Festival being postponed, or our meetings being cancelled.

But, for regular updates on the wider Coronavirus situation in our city or country we would direct you to the following sources of information, which are updated regularly;

 

You may also wish to view the following websites, although they do not have dedicated Coronarivus pages / sections, may provide useful information such as travel arrangements etc;

 

Trams to Newhaven construction work paused

The Trams to Newhaven team have announced that they are pausing construction work until further notice. The announcement made this evening explains that this is due to the current Coronavirus pandemic.Image result for trams to newhaven logo

Various members of our community have this week been discussing whether the construction works should be continuing in light of the restrictions of liberty put into effect by the UK and Scottish Governments.

The Trams to Newhaven team point out that it may take some time to close down the construction sites in a safe way and that traffic management arrangements (traffic signs, traffic signals, fencing etc) will remain in place.

Community Councils were asked to keep this information private until 6pm, although it is noted that atleast one journalist has broken the story early.

Their statement is as follows;

Formal instruction has been issued to Sacyr, Farrans Neopul (SFN) and Morrison Utility Services (MUS) to shut down the Trams to Newhaven construction site. This is in accordance with advice given by the Scottish Government over the last 48 hours.

 

The complexity of this project means that it will take a few days to action and there may be works that need to be completed in order to make the site safe and secure. Any further work that is undertaken will be done in accordance with Scottish Government guidelines around proximity working. Current traffic management arrangements will remain in place.

 

Work will continue off-site, again operating to strict social distancing guidelines, including design, planning and scheduling, as well as drawing up a remobilisation strategy for returning to the site once restrictions are lifted. We will also be closely liaising with MUS and SFN to look at ways of mitigating the impact of work stopping on the wider project.

 

The project contact centre will continue to be operational for any queries.

Leith Festival 2020 postponed

Leith Festival have this afternoon announced that Leith Festival 2020 will be postponed for the time being, due to the Coronavirus pandemic.  Image result for leith festival

In June, they will consider whether the festival can continue, in some form, in September.

Their statement makes a really important point, that as a community we need something to look forward to and something that will bring us together. We should keep this in mind through the dark days we are currently experiencing.

Their statement said;

As you can imagine, we’ve been giving Leith Festival Gala Day 2020 a lot of thought.
We wanted you all to receive an email ahead of us posting our decision round social media.
We recognised early on that we needed to call off Gala Day for June 2020, but have debated long and hard, and decided to leave the door open for holding an event in September 2020.
This may prove wildly unrealistic, but we will make a final decision in June, when we guess the picture will be a lot clearer for all of us. This could be a fairly simple event such as the Leith Tattoo or the Pageant (more likely), or some kind of Gala Day. Clearly a Gala Day looks implausible right now, it may be forbidden, or clearly not responsible – either to plan for it, or to hold it. 
But we feel we are all going to need things to look forward to, and things that will help bring us all back together, once this difficult, sad and worrying time is past.

 

Coronavirus precautions lead to cancellation of Community Council meeting on 30 March 2020

The next meeting of Leith Links Community Council, planned for Monday 30 March 2020, has been cancelled due to Coronavirus precautions.

The work of the Community Council continues utilising electronic tools such as email & zoom but it may be a number of months before we are able to hold our meetings in public.

The thoughts of all community councillors are with you at this difficult time.

Please keep yourself safe and up to date with rapidly changing advice.

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