Disco! (2 July)

Come to a fundraising family disco (attached) on 2nd July at Saughton Rec. Celebrate the end of term by coming along. Feel free to bring (please don’t send) your children. See below for details!

Disco

Results of consultation on park vision

You can now find the survey results here. Thanks to everyone who took park or came to the drop-in session. We will present an amended plan at the Murrayfield Community Council meeting on Tuesday 19th April at 730pm, Murrayfield Parish Church Centre. It is open to the public, so please attend if you are interested (www.murrayfieldcc.org.uk).

However in order to give full justice to the many views we received we will need to revise the plans further. You can still join in the discussion at many future points, and at any time right here or by visiting our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/roseburnpark/

The next presentation we are scheduled to make will be to the City of Edinburgh Council West Edinburgh Neighbourhood Partnership. That meeting will take place on Thursday May 12th and at that point we hope to secure the Council’s in-principle support.

Thereafter we will need to secure Planning Committee approval. To do this we will need a landscape architect to produce a very detailed plan, which of course will be further refined in the light of the Planning Officer’s views. You will again have the chance to comment when the planning application goes live on-line. The Planning Committee meetings are open to the public.

It is likely to take at least six months, until November of this year, before approval is granted. There are 15 Councillors on the Committee, including one of our Ward Councillors, Cllr Jeremy Balfour, so you can be sure the vision will have close scrutiny.

It will only be once approval has been given that we will be able to start fundraising for the many parts of the vision- a process which is likely to take several years.

Therefore you can see that this vision involves a long and complicated journey to secure and we most definitely require the support of the community if we are to have any success.

Pile testing works

The following public notice has been released by Eleana Caldow | PR Liaison (Civils) | McLaughlin & Harvey Ltd, the flood defence works contractor:
Public Notice
Re: Water of Leith Flood Prevention – Pile Testing Works
We will be carrying out Pile Testing works in individual areas along the river within the next 2 weeks.
This is to enable us to plan the main construction works which are due to commence in the summer.
All works will be carried out in accordance with our strict approved procedures.
Should you have any queries please call:
028 9034 1420
Or via email at
Enquiries.waterofleith@mclh.co.uk

Trees and flood defence works

You may have noticed the decorated trees.

Concerned residents have raised a petition against the removal of trees as part of the upcoming flood works, and especially two of the oldest at the NE entrance (with ovals on the map below).

The petition is here: https://www.change.org/p/edinburgh-council-save-two-oldest-trees-in-roseburn-park-edinburgh

Friends of Roseburn Park have requested a walk through with the project manager to assess the necessity of removing the designated trees.  There is some suggestion that some of the removals were needed for the scheme before it was revised and might no longer be required.

Whilst we are extremely saddened at the prospect of losing any trees we recognise that local residents have waited some considerable time for action to be taken to improve flood defences. We understand that the designated trees are either in the direct line of building works or are likely to have root damage during the works thus creating a hazard or potential flood risk. Removing trees simply for convenience sake is clearly unacceptable and we will argue strongly against this.

We have also been arguing for some of the felled trunks to be retained in the park and incorporated into it to allow children to play on the logs as part of ongoing efforts to work on a new play scheme.  This has been thus far opposed by the Council for various reasons.

On the plus side the plans include planting more trees than are due to be felled (mature specimens, though obviously not of the age and size of some due to go).

All comments are welcome and will be passed to the council.

TreesAtRisk [5483267]

City looking at replacing glyphosates (Round-up)

Friends of Roseburn Park recently brought up with City Council our concerns about the use of glyphosates in controlling weeds and borders in the park, particularly around the play area.  Glyphosates are the active ingredient in the popular herbicide, Round-up.  Recently the World Health Organisation has upgraded glyphosates to “probable carcinogen”, which is the second highest risk category for chemicals in relation to cancer.

The Council has since announced that they are exploring alternative ways of controlling weeds in order to phase out the use of this weed-killer:

http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/glyphosate-weedkiller-to-be-ditched-over-cancer-fears-1-3986630