The Wester Hailes Community Council held their first meeting of 2016 yesterday, Wednesday 6 January 2016, at Wester Hailes library and the Digital Sentinel was there to report on what was discussed.
The meeting was attended by local councillors Ricky Henderson and Bill Henderson and was chaired by community council vice-chair Anne Denholm.
The first item on the agenda was a report from local police officers. They announced that their priorities had remained unchanged and that they were still focusing on domestic violence and hate crime.
They reported that in December, 108 crimes were reported to the police and of them 55% were currently solved with investigations still ongoing. In regards to their recent campaign on festive driving they had a 90% solvency rate with most of these offences being drink driving related. They announced that they were looking into the ongoing problems at the plaza and in the library and that they were taking part in a meeting in the coming weeks to try and address it.
The police were asked about the recent news of a man being found dead in one of the high rises over the festive period and if that was anything the community should be worried about. They replied that there was no need to be concerned and that it was an isolated incident.
There was then a discussion on the official opening of the new Harvesters Link and a new application to Scotrail on behalf of the Community Council for a grant to create an outdoor gallery at the Link. The hope is that they will find out in the coming weeks if the application has been successful and that it could be an opportunity to address one of the concerns raised at the Open Space by beautifying some local areas.
The next meeting of the Community Council will take place on Wednesday 3rd February 2016, 6.00- 7.45pm, at Wester Hailes library.
