Future of £500,000 community projects in limbo after rival councillors fail to agree support

Since 2019, Edinburgh City Council has been working on community projects funded via the Scottish Government’s Town Centre Fund.

So far, the council has received £2.6m towards its chosen projects, which includes the ongoing conversion of Granton Station, development of a ‘Culture and Learning Hub’ in Pennywell, the regeneration of Queensferry’s public spaces, and the continued redevelopment of Westside Plaza.

Now, the council has received a further £954,000 from the Town Centre Fund, and needs to reallocate £500,000 from the Queensferry Public Realm project due to a delay in producing a design which could meet the Scottish government’s funding deadlines.

Projects under consideration

At a meeting of the council’s housing, homelessness and fair working committee, councillors were asked to select which projects would benefit from the additional £1.45m of available funding.

Councillors were presented with ten projects, each with different costings:

The conversion of St Oswald’s Church in Bruntsfield into a community space - £550,000 A rebuild and expansion of the former Corstorphine Public Hall, which was destroyed by fire in 2013, into a community centre - £750,000 The conversion of a site in Craigmillar into a container-park market place - £170,000 Public enhancements in Gracemount, such as planting trees and installing bike racks - £100,000 Public enhancement works outside of the planned conversion of Granton Station into an enterprise hub - £850,000 Design fees for the Hub - £125,000 Final funding for the conversion of the former convenience store in Juniper Green into the ‘Pentlands Community Space’ - £150,000 The third phase of the ‘Wayfinding’ project, which will see the installation of 63 navigation signs around the city - £500,000 Public realm improvements in the West End - £150,000 Further funding for the Westside Plaza regeneration project - £300,000

The council’s distinct political groups, the SNP/Labour coalition, the Conservatives, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats all submitted rival proposals for the funding.

The coalition proposed funding the Gracemount public realm works, the Craigmillar town centre site improvement, the Westside Plaza regeneration project, the Granton Station public realm works, and to provide half the funding for the Pentland Community Space and the Pennywell Hub.

The Conservatives tabled an amendment asking for the money to fund the St Oswald’s Church redevelopment, the Corstorphine Community Centre and the Pentlands Community Space.

The Greens proposed fully funding the Craigmillar, Gracemount, Pennywell Hub and Westside Plaza projects, and providing 89% (£759,000) of the Granton Station project funding requirement.

The Liberal Democrat’s motion called for the St Oswald’s Church, the Corstorphine Community Centre and Pennywell Hub projects to get the nod.

The Conservative and Liberal Democrat amendments both included the development of Corstorphine Community Centre, and Frank Ross, Lord Provost of Edinburgh and SNP councillor, spoke out against his own coalition’s plans to leave out the community centre.

‘Shovel-ready’

Councillor Ross, who represents Corstorphine and Murrayfield, said the coalition’s plans to fund so many public enhancement works was ‘putting pavements before people’: “The Corstorphine Community Centre has spent £300,000 getting the project ‘shovel-ready’, with full planning permission and the preferred contractor, a local family-run firm, being selected.

“This has been a difficult period as this group of volunteers has also continued to deliver those services it could with the limitations of the current facility.

“This is a community that needs a community facility to focus the delivery of vital services.

“It’s previously been said the charity should just build what it can with the money they have, and that could be done, but it would have two major failings.

“It would not provide all of the services our citizens need and that should be the focus. It would also require annual revenue support from the council to run, as the majority of community centres do.

“Yes, the motion submitted by the coalition targets areas with a higher modelled estimation of poverty than the Corstorphine and Murrayfield ward, but it ignores the reality of the need of the local citizens.

“If the committee passes the coalition motion, which promotes public realm spending and fails to contribute to Corstorphine Community Centre rebuild, it is in my opinion literally putting pavements before people.”

After each motion was defeated one by one, the committee eventually voted for the coalition’s motion.

Acting in ‘bad faith’

However, Conservative councillor John McLellan, who represents Craigentinny and Duddingston, called for the project to be ratified by the full council, which is next due to meet on Thursday November 19.

Tory Forth councillor Jim Campbell, Tory Almond councillor Graham Hutchinson and Liberal Democrat councillor Kevin Lang, who also represents Almond, joined councillor McLellan in moving the decision to the next full council meeting.

This provoked the ire of convener Kate Campbell, who represents Portobello and Craigmillar for the SNP.

Councillor Campbell said: “I must say I’m quite disappointed by that councillor McLellan, because as you will be aware, your motion was submitted late and I took it as an emergency motion in good faith.

“As has been discussed, in a fair amount of detail, these are time sensitive, and that we have a limited amount of time to get a significant number of capital projects off the ground and the money be committed before the end of the financial year and spent by the middle of the next financial year.

“Moving to allocating the funds and getting the projects going is of quite a lot of importance and if we don’t manage to do that there is a risk we might have to return some of this money and we may not see it all invested into Edinburgh.

“I would like to put on record that I am incredibly disappointed in this.”

Joseph Anderson for Local Democracy Reporting Service

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