The contractors carrying out the upgrade works to the Foot of the Walk junction (MacLay Civil Engineering Ltd) are anticipated to start mobilising next week, commencing 9 February, with full presence on site expected week commencing 16 February.

 The works, aimed at simplifying and improving the crossing for pedestrians, are expected to take 15 weeks to complete. In addition to road and footway resurfacing, the redesigned junction will see 4 single stage pedestrian crossings installed at the bottom of Leith Walk, Duke Street, Great Junction Street and Constitution Street. Once fully operational the junction crossing will include an all pedestrian phase allowing those on foot to cross more easily than at present improving the overall accessibility of the area in line with the design principles of the Leith Programme.

 For the duration of these works, Constitution Street will be closed at its junction with Leith Walk as part of the traffic management arrangements in place aimed at minimising disruption to traffic flow as much as possible. Local access to this area will be via Laurie Street, Queen Charlotte Street, or Bernard Street. Three way temporary traffic lights will be in operation at the main Leith Walk junction to control traffic flow. It is anticipated that traffic management arrangements will commence on 16 February.

 Bus diversion and general traffic conditions information reminder:

Details of the most up to date information regarding any bus diversions and traffic conditions affecting Leith Walk please visit either of the sites below:

https://twitter.com/on_lothianbuses

 https://twitter.com/edintravel

Ongoing Works – Pilrig Street to Crown Place:

Crummock (Scotland) Ltd, contractors on the Pilrig Street to Crown Place section, are continuing with localised remedials and the completion of outstanding works including bus tracker connections and the installation of cycle racks, road markings and associated signage. Getting the latter fully installed is important as this will allow the enforcement of the new parking regulations to commence. Details of these new regulations will follow in a separate update.

 New Design Layout:

The new design of Leith Walk, north of Pilrig Street, with additional formal and informal pedestrian crossing points appears to be working well at this early stage with pedestrians, cyclists and drivers getting used to the new pedestrian friendly layout and crossing locations. One of the main aims of the Leith Programme is to make the area more accessible and safe for those on foot and we would ask that all road users become familiar with the new layout and respect all the pedestrian crossing points.

£eith decides is a Leith Neighbourhood Parnership initiative. It is a method which gives over the decision making power on the allocation of community grants to the people of Leith.You can find out more here: http://www.edinburghnp.org.uk/neighbourhood-partnerships/leith/about/%C2%A3eith-decides/There are 37 local projects from which to choose this year.  Leithers are asked to cast their vote on how to allocate £22,092 in grants of up to £1,000.
Sat 07 Feb 2015 – 12:30 pm – 3:00 pm
Leith Community Centre
Kirkgate, Leith
Edinburgh

Following the creation of the Leith Local Community Plan for 2014 – 2017, the above action group has been established to deliver two of the Leith local plan priorities;

·         Develop closer links between the community and safety services

·         Raise awareness of how to report safety concerns

Our first task is to get the community, community representatives etc together to create an action plan, to be coordinated by the Safe Leith Action Group, to plan how the community & organisations can work together to address the above two priorities.

 I would like to everyone who lives, works, studies, volunteers or visits Leith to attend our public meeting on Tuesday 24^th February, from 6pm in McDonald Road Library, those who cannot attend can still have some input into the meeting by completing our brief survey, the responses gained will be fed into the public meeting.  The survey can be found athttps://www.surveymonkey.com/s/B6MHCC8.

 Members of the community can attend the meeting and / or complete the survey as well.

 The more people who feed into the action plan, the better!

 Kind Regards

 Michael

Michael Traill | Community Safety Officer | City Centre / Leith Neighbourhood Office | Services for Communities | The City of Edinburgh Council | Room 9.01, 329 High Street, EH1 1YJ | Tel 0131 529 7061 |  

Happy New Year

The next meeting of Leith Links CC takes place on Monday, 26th Januray 2015. Meetings take place in Persevere Room, Leith Community Centre at 7pm. If you live in the Leith Links area we would be pleased to meet you.

AGENDA 260115 LEITH LINKS COMMUNITY COUNCIL Minutes Nov 2014

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Happy New Year from Leith Links Community Council. The first meeting of 2015 takes place on Monday, 26th January in Leith Community Centre, New Kirkgate at 7pm prompt. If you live in the area covered by LLCC and have an interest in making your community stronger we would happy to see you. Agenda and minutes of last meeting will be issued prior to the next meeting.

On behalf of Leith Links Community Council may I wish everyone a very happy, peaceful and hopefully fruitful New Year. If you’ve made your resolutions please consider adding another. If you have a surplus of canned food which was bought for guests and never used then consider donating them to the Edinburgh North East Foodbank based in Henderson Street. There’s also one which covers North West depending on where you live. It’s unfortunate that there is a need for an increasing number of foodbanks in all parts of Scotland. If you can give a little help please have a look at the links below.

www.edinburghne.foodbank.org.uk

www.edinburghnw.foodbank.org.uk

I was saddened to read the article in the Evening News’Neglected centre to be razed over repair bills’ but wasn’t surprised. When I first became involved with Leith Links CC our meetings were held in a church hall but we moved to Duncan Place to show our support for this community asset. I’m happy to be corrected but prior to the last City Council elections possibly 4 or 5 years ago I attended a meeting and the same repair cost figure of £3.5 million was quoted but nothing was done.(Strange how the figure hasn’t increased) The£387,000 for the lift which would have made the centre accessible for the disabled was allocated and ring fenced by the city council well before my time on the CC but nothing was done. The money has layen untouched over the years with someone wondering how they could get their hands on it to be used in the budget black pit. According to the News this money will now have to be pay for the building being pulled down. You couldn’t make it up but this appears to be another symptom of council mismanagement which when added to other failures has resulted in the population of this fine city facing cuts to chip away at the massive debt faced by the council. The building has always been well used by the local community but I fear that the real decision on its future was made many years ago by council officials and not elected councillors that it would be closed. The lack of necessary repairs which were identified in 2008/9 have allowed the building to deteriorate to the point where the only option appears to be to demolish it. Will any council officials be taken to task, reprimanded or dimissed? I’ll let you answer that one.