TRINITY COMMUNITY COUNCIL

AGM JUNE 2015 CHAIRMAN’S REPORT

Introduction

2014-15 has again been a busy and constructive year for Trinity Community Council (TCC). We have continued to expand our involvement and communications with local residents and built on our close working relations with City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) officials and neighbouring Community Councils. Key issues in which we have been involved over the year include the proposed Sainsbury Local Store in Craighall Road, development along the Waterfront, traffic in East Trinity Road and Lower Granton Road, the extension of the 20mph zone, and parking.

Organisation

At the AGM in May 2014, I was re-elected as Chair, Janet Ruddiman as Vice Chair and Alyson Cameron as Treasurer. I am most grateful for their help. Unfortunately no-one was prepared to take on the role of Secretary and this has fallen largely to myself with the help of one or two other members. This has created increasing pressures in an already busy year, not least as the attempt to allocate responsibilities to small groups of members has not proved successful.

My particular thanks also go to Tricia Brindle for all her work as our Planning Officer and Bill Rodger for his work on communications.

We have held 10 meetings during the year. I am most grateful for members’ regular attendance and constructive input to the wide range of issues we have discussed. It is also heartening to see a continuing steady increase in the number of local residents who have been attending our meetings.

Liz Grant, a past Chair, retired during the course of the year and unfortunately later passed away. Liz gave outstanding service to TCC during her long years as a member

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and Chair. Kate Joester and Alister Greig also resigned. We welcomed Kevin Taylor as the member representing Wardie Primary Parent Council.

Finally I am grateful for the attendance and input from our local Edinburgh councillors, from Malcolm Chisholm MSP and from Mark Lazarowicz MP.

Communications

We have continued to make significant advances in extending our communications with local residents. In addition to our regular monthly articles in Trinity Spotlight and our Facebook page, Bill Rodger has continued to organise and publish the TCC e-newsletter which updates residents on what is happening at TCC meetings and in the area, Circulation is now approaching 300 residents and is a significant factor in encouraging debate on important issues and increasing attendance at our meetings. Mark Liddle has re-developed the TCC website to bring it up to date and make it much more user friendly: this was launched early in 2015. Finally, Bill Rodger represented TCC in a pilot scheme to extend the North Edinburgh News and make it relevant to people in Trinity as well as the rest of North Edinburgh. In March we had our first joint meeting with Trinity Academy Student Council. A number of issues of concern to the students such as bicycle thefts and safety on the Walkway were discussed and regular twice-yearly meetings will now follow. Finally, TCC took stalls at a number of local fetes during the year. This helped to spread the news about TCC and how residents could become involved, not least by signing up to receive copies of our e-newsletter. I am very grateful to Bunty Lind for her unflagging and enthusiastic efforts at these events.

Activities

In April 2014 we undertook our annual Walkabout. This was well attended and focused on the Denham Green area, Boswall Road and places in between. As a result, a rolling programme of pavement and street repairs has been put in place by CEC and the South Trinity Road/Cargill Terrace junction upgraded. Parking as a result of the new Hospice has continued to create problems in Boswall Road and Rod Shearer in particular has been active throughout the year in pressing for a solution to these problems.

On the planning front, Sainsbury submitted an application for a new Local Convenience store, children's nursery and 5 studio flats on the site of the old garage in Craighall Road. A presentation by the developers at our June meeting was extremely well attended with residents divided in their opinions on the merits of the proposal. We subsequently submitted detailed comments setting out our concerns, including those relating to traffic and road safety. The application was finally agreed by CEC but work has yet to start on the site. A proposal to build 5 new town houses on the site at 127 Trinity Road raised significant concerns but also had supporters and we have liaised with local residents and others to try and find a satisfactory

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solution. The realignment of Lower Granton Road was finally completed and appears to have considerably eased the flow of traffic. A side benefit has been to reduce the traffic along East Trinity Road. CEC is continuing to monitor the situation there before reaching any decision on whether further measures are necessary: initial feedback from local residents suggested a much improved situation and a correspondingly reduced need for radical action.

More generally, we have taken part in a range of meetings together with neighbouring community councils, developers and officials on the regeneration and development of the Waterfront. This will involve a significant increase in both housing and commercial development to both the west and east of Trinity. Among our principal concerns are the likely increase in traffic volume and, unlike for other areas of Edinburgh, the absence of a detailed traffic and transport appraisal. We have therefore been pressing for an updating of the North Edinburgh Transport Action Plan which was published in 2008. Our efforts finally appear to be bearing some fruit.

In the autumn CEC launched a consultation exercise on the extension of a 20mph speed limit throughout most of Edinburgh. Much of Trinity is already covered and the focus was on Lower Granton Road. Following meetings with Granton and District Community Council we supported the extension of the 20mph to Lower Granton Road. Parking continued to be a controversial issue throughout the year. TCC undertook a short consultation exercise and comments received ranged from supporting the introduction of Priority Parking Zones to leaving the situation as it was. Following discussions with CEC officials it was agreed that it would be sufficient to introduce single yellow lines in some of the streets worst affected.

Improvements to Starbank Park have gone from strength to strength thanks to the Friends of Starbank Park and a large number of volunteers. Green Flag Status has been sought. The Park is now a major asset to Trinity as a whole. Victoria Park successfully retained its Green Flag status. Together with Forth Neighbourhood Partnership, TCC was successful in pressing for a grant to upgrade the tennis and basketball courts in Victoria Park and these are now fully operational. Tim Parker helped to take forward the plans to convert one of the bowling greens to provide mini allotments for residents.

We have continued to develop close relations with Forth Neighbourhood Partnership (FNP). We worked closely with them on putting together the Local Community Plan 2014-17 and more generally on the Local Development Plan for Edinburgh as a whole. TCC now has its own dedicated FNP officer, Scott Donkin, and together we have constructed a series of performance indicators to monitor progress on environmental and other issues. We also discussed and made an input to the CEC Budget consultation exercise.

Throughout the year we have liaised closely with North Edinburgh Police. Police Scotland Officers regularly attend our meetings to provide an update on crime in the

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area and also useful security advice. A particularly issue of concern to residents in the latter part of the year was an apparent rise in the number of housebreakings in the Trinity area. I am very grateful to those officers who have come along.

The Future

2015-16 promises to be an equally busy and interesting year with our Walkabout in April already undertaken, Waterfront development picking up and impacting on transport and the environment, strengthening the liaison with Trinity Academy Pupil Council and our continued push to encourage residents to become more involved. More widely, CEC will be looking for Community Councils to become involved in its Transformational Programme, spurred on by the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill, and the refreshed Edinburgh Association of Community Councils will be pressing for greater input on city-wide issues. I look forward to your continuing input to these and the many other issues that will arise.

Richard Scott

Chair, Trinity Community Council

June 2015

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