Category: Leith Links Community Council

A Place Plan for Leith – have your say!

Please can residents for Leith Links spare a little time to complete the latest wee survey from the dynamic team at Eala Impacts, who are aiming to deliver a Place Plan for Leith, very soon.
A Place Plan just means a ‘design’ for the Leith that we would like to see – the best possible version of Leith. If we had such a Place Plan, Scottish Government ruling means that the City of Edinburgh Council would be obliged to consider it when making decisions on planning applications.
It’s a tool that the community could use to have a voice to speak out against the big profit-grabbing developers – and lets face it, we need all the tools we can get!
Here is the latest message from the team:

We completed the analysis of the responses we got to Survey 1, which can be found on the web page we’re using  to hold the Place Plan information: https://www.ealaimpacts.co.uk/leith-place-plan There’s some great feedback in there which we think is really interesting on its own.

From the ‘challenges’ identified by the 287 respondents and using many of the suggestions put forward, we have drafted responses/actions against each of the 14 topic areas and used them to build Survey 2. It can be found here: https://form.jotform.com/252313217116041. We have also attached a flyer.

We’d like as many people as possible to read and complete Survey 2. As before, for people with only a minute, they can just do Section A (tick the top 3 responses for the place plan). For people with five minutes, they can go through and just score each suggestion from 1 to 6. Or for people with more time they can open up the Full Action Plan for each and make detailed comments.  Please can you fill out the survey yourselves and send on the link and flyer to as many people as possible via your personal connections and mailing lists. We have asked around 200 local organisations to do the same, and we will be holding pop-up events around Leith over the next four weeks to publicise it. There are paper copies in Leith Library, MacDonald Road Library, Leith Community Centre, Duncan Place, Norton Park, and Heart of Newhaven Community.

Once we have closed the survey in October we’ll be able to see what there is support for us to include in the Place Plan, and we can then complete it based on that. If all goes to plan, we’ll have a document for you to review towards the end of October.

Kind regards,

Joanne McClelland

A4 Poster Flyer Survey 2

REMINDER Leith Jacobites and the ’45 Rebellion, Tuesday,16th September, Leith Community Centre, New Kirkgate

An invitation to attend the next meeting of the Leith Local History Society, on TUESDAY 16th September at 7pm in Leith Community Education Centre,New Kirkgate, Leith, to hear this fascinating presentation by Steven Robb.

Leith Jacobites, James Nicolson and the ’45 Rebellion

While researching James Nicolson a Coffee House owner on the Shore and a follower of Bonnie Prince Charlie Steven discovered links to other Leithers who supported the Jacobite cause and why they became involved.

It should be a very interesting night.

Our speaker Steven is from Edinburgh and works for Historic Environment Scotland and has a background in architectural conservation.

All welcome, £2 at door or free to members

 

 

Leith Jacobites and the ’45 Rebellion, Tuesday 16th September, Leith Community Centre, New Kirkgate

  1. Just a little reminder to please join us at the first meeting of the Leith Local History Society programme for 2025/26, on TUESDAY 16th September AT 7pm in Leith Community Education Centre,New Kirkgate, Leith to hear this fascinating presentation by Steven Robb.

Leith Jacobites, James Nicolson and the ’45 Rebellion.

While researching James Nicolson a Coffee House owner on the Shore and later a follower of Bonnie Prince Charlie, Steven discovered links to other Leithers who supporrted the Jacobites cause and what made them become involved.

It should be an interesting night.

Our speaker, Steven is from Edinburgh and works for Historic Environment Scotland and has a background in architectural conservation.

 

All welcome, £2 at the door for non members  or free to members

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Next Meeting of LLCC, Monday 25th August, in person at Duncan Place 6:30pm

The next meeting of LLCC will be next Monday, 25th August, in person at Duncan Place, 6:30 pm

We have 2 speakers:
  • Matthew Farnham, Community Engagement & Operational Communications          Coordinator, Veolia (re Seafield)
  • Architect Joanne McClelland re the Leith Place Plan (in progress)
The meeting is open to interested members of the public.
Get in touch if you would like a link to enable remote attendance.
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Newkirkgate Benches

The benches at the Newkirkgate shopping centre by the Queen Victoria Statue have been temporarily removed by Edinburgh City Council (ECC).

After querying this with ECC we have been made aware this was done after a request from Police Scotland.

The benches have been moved to Taylor Gardens for the time being and no set date has been given for their return to the Foot of the Walk.

Public Toilets on Leith Links 2025

 

They’re open.

The public toilets located at the Northern end of Leith Links are now open. While we were disappointed in the delay to the opening, it is good to see the toilets are now in use.

The operating hours are published on the front of the building.

They will be open seven days a week, over spring and summer from 8am to 8pm, and over autumn and winter from 8am to 6pm.

There is a water fountain on the side.

 

For more information on the project as a whole see: Thriving Green Spaces Website

Who gets to say how Visitor Levy funds are managed?

This Herald article raises the question of who will influence how the £50million per year raised from the Visitor Levy is spent, across Edinburgh. Surely this process should be completely transparent, highly democratic and fully accountable, otherwise how can citizens / council tax payers trust/have confidence in it?

However, a recently set up Advisory Forum includes members whose names have raised eyebrows. For example, someone who is well known to this Community Council in his role as manager of the Cameron Guest House Group and agent of the Akbar Mir family who own and profit handsomely from an ever increasing number of ‘hotels’ and guest houses for homeless people (especially in the Leith Links area). Is this an appropriate background for an initiative that aims to “‘fund public services, infrastructure and resident-visitor experience’, and to “manage the impacts of tourism”?  

Our view, quoted in the article, is that the Forum should consist of members with a strong track record in delivering improvements for communities.

Read the whole article here.

What will our area be like in 20 years? Have your say!

What will our area look like in the future?
Well, what we put forward NOW will shape what happens later.

EALA Impacts are working with all three of the Leith Community Councils (Leith Links, Leith Harbour & Newhaven, and Leith Central) to make a Local Place Plan for Leith.

This is important because the Local Place Plan will feed into the City Council’s “City Plan 2040”, which sets out what is allowed to be built in the city, and will be used for many other things to shape the future of our neighbourhood.

It is really important that local poeple say what they want and don’t want in their area, in the future.

The deadline for submission to the City Council is Autumn 2025, but your comments and ideas should ideally be in by end of July / August.. Please use the QR code below or send in by email.

Read more about the importance of Local Place Plans, and how to make them, here

qr code
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Revised Leith Links Community Council Boundary

Since March 2025, when Community Council elections took place, there have been some changes to the boundary of certain Community Councils, Leith Links amongst them.

Our area has shrunk very slightly, just at its southern edge. A very small sliver of Restalrig has been moved from the Leith Links area into the Craigentinny and Meadowbank CC area. The new southern boundary of Leith Links Community Council now runs along the Restalrig Road Railway path, which is nice and easy to make sense of.

The reason behind this change is to align the boundary of the Community Council with the boundary of the City of Edinburgh Council Ward (i.e.Ward 13, Leith), which means that the elected Ward Councillors responsible for each area are not straddling two (or more) different Community Councils, and in the process either duplicating the work of the neighbouring Ward Councillors, or ignoring one part of their area.

The map below shows the new boundary.

Our neighbours are –

to the North, and NorthWest – Leith Harbour & Newhaven CC

to the SouthWest  – Leith Central CC

to the South, SouthEast and East – Craigentinny & Meadowbank CC

For more information, see:

https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/community-planning/community-councils/1

https://cityofedinburgh.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/lookup/index.html?appid=06d64c0a7ae1405cb243c18e3fa2cd97

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Next meeting of Leith Links Community Council, online at 6:30pm, Monday 30 June 2025

The next meeting of Leith Links Community Council will be held online at 6:30pm on Monday 30 June 2025.

Minutes of previous meeting are here.

Agenda is here.

We have a guest speaker attending, Catherine Scanlin, Senior Council Officer in charge of ‘Licensing’ at City of Edinburgh Council, who will give us some much needed clarity on how the Licensing process works, and be able to answer questions.

The online link will be sent to all Community Councillors and invitees. Members of the public are welcome to join;

Secretary LeithLinks invites you to a Microsoft Teams Meeting:

LLCC June Meeting
30 June 2025
18:30 – 21:30 (GMT)

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