Wester Hailes Community Council

Wester Hailes Library

Wester Hailes Community Council met at the library yesterday, 4 March 2015, and the Digital Sentinel was there to tell everyone who missed it, what was discussed!

The meeting was chaired by John Aitchison with  Councillors Catherine Fullerton and Ricky Henderson, the Labour candidate for Edinburgh South West, in attendance.

The police gave a short report stating that they were unable to give a complete list of crimes however they focused on several key areas of interest. They said that people had been caught for the recent spate of vandalism of public buildings.  Sean Bell, who works with Edinburgh Council’s Children and Families, commented that the vandalism has significantly decreased over the past month.

murrayburn house vandalism

The police mentioned that EH14 continues to have a high number of house breaking’s and that there had been a number of arrests over the weekends but none of these people were from Wester Hailes.

They also highlighted the high number of road traffic collisions over the past month, especially in the Sighthill area.  The PC commented that this was most likely due to the weather conditions at this time of year with low winter sun and wet roads and asked everyone to take care while driving.

Finally they mentioned that there had been several complaints relating to  large parties in the Calders containing over 100 teenagers two nights in a row and that they had spoken to those responsible.

After the police there was a report by Andy Wallace about the Council policy on repairs for mixed buildings occupied by owners and council tenants.  He stated that since 2011 the Council will no longer take the lead on repair projects on buildings where there are owners, even if there is a majority of Council tenants. Though he added that if there was damage to a shared building which was directly impacting a Council tenant such as water ingress, then the Council would carry out emergency repairs.

He commented that the Council is willing to provide advice to owners who take the lead on projects and that the Council pays its share of any work done within a week of receiving the invoice. Mr Wallace commented that he shared the frustration of many Council tenants who are unable to get work done as it is not deemed an emergency and that he and some of his colleagues had worked to get a committee established, which will meet next Friday, that would propose plans for getting repairs carried out in a better manner.

Places for People construction site building

There was then a short update on the Pod construction at Harvesters Way, the Health Agency has taken the lead and there are plans to create a healthy cafe in the completed building. The current schedule is that concrete will be poured in April and a business plan for the building will be presented in May. The Community Council also expressed its excitement for the upcoming Open Space event on 25 April 2015.

Finally, Councillor Ricky Henderson asked if there was any plans for a Hustings in Wester Hailes, the Council said that there currently wasn’t but that it was a good idea and that they would get in touch with all the candidates and see if something could be organised. They also had a vote on whether in future the meetings should be held once a month instead of every six weeks which passed and will be discussed further at the next meeting and the Community Council’s AGM.

The next meeting will take place on Wednesday 15 April 2015, 6.00-7.45pm, at Wester Hailes Library.

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