Category: Leith Links Community Council

LLCC meeting, tomorrow, Monday, 27 October, Duncan Place, 6:30 pm

The next meeting of LLCC will be next Monday, 27th October, in person at Duncan Place, at 6:30 pm.

We have important Guest Speakers from City of Edinburgh Council: Mr. Gareth Barwell, Interim Corporate Director of Place, and Mr. David Givan, Chief Planning Officer and Head of Building Standards.

They have agreed to come for a discussion on questions we asked them, including the following :

What is the vision – what is planned – for Leith, in the next few years?
Our area has been very profoundly affected in recent years by dramatic changes  – large scale new building developments, significant population expansion, tramworks, new CPZs and pending CPZs, Leith Connections’ road closures and partial closures and new cycleways, bus re-routings and diversions,’floating bus stops’ etc. (as well as more routine roadworks, planned utility works etc., often springing up with no prior warning, and no explanation to local residents & businesses) – but it sometimes feels to people in the local community that the various different departments at the council do not necessarily put together an integrated overview of how all these different schemes will interact with each other and do not consider the overall effect on local residents.  Is there an overall, connected, picture of it all, and of how all these schemes will interact with each other and affect local residents (intended and unintended consequences)?  How will it be monitored?
Basically – who is is in overall charge and taking responsibility for the aggregated effect of all these separate schemes?

The meeting is open to interested members of the local community.

Here is a link to enable remote attendance.
Secretary LeithLinks invited you to a Microsoft Teams Meeting:
LLCC October meeting
Monday 27 October 2025
18:30pm GMT

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Please come and join the Litter pick on the Links, Saturday 4rth October 10am

NOW CANCELLED DUE TO BAD WEATHER!

Duncan Place is organising a litter pick on the Links next week, and looking for volunteeers to come along to help. Do come and join in – litter picking os surprisingly satisfying!

Leith Links Litter Pick

When?

  • Saturday 4th October
  • 10am – 12noon (free cuppa afterwards).

Where?

  • meet at Duncan Place Community Hub at 10am (4 Duncan Place, EH6 8HW)

What?

  • Litter pick on Leith Links
  • Followed by a hot drink and biscuits inside
  • We have litter pickers, and a limited number of bin bag hoops and gloves for you to use. If you have your own, please bring them!

Who?

  • Everyone is welcome to come and help!
  • Young people (under 16) attending should be accompanied by an adult

If the weather is really bad, the the litter pick wil be called off! If in doubt, give Duncan Place a call on the morning (from 9am) on 0131 364 4351.

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Next meeting of LLCC, Monday 29th September, Duncan Place, 6:30 pm

The next meeting of LLCC will be next Monday, 29th September, in person at Duncan Place, at 6:30 pm

The meeting is open to interested members of the public.
Get in touch if you would like a link to enable remote attendance
Secretary LeithLinks invited you to a Microsoft Teams Meeting:
Leith Links Community Council meeting
29 September 2025, 18:30  

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.

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