A group of Edinburgh residents from Willowbrae and Northfield met yesterday to consider the planned
privatisation of council services in Edinburgh. They decided at the meeting to invite their local councillors to come and explain the plans and what they might mean for the provision of services in the city.
“I was shocked to hear that the process was already so advanced, and that the council has involved two companies connected to multi-million pound fines for price-rigging,” said one Northfield resident. “There doesn’t seem to have been any consultation with local people about this. Edinburgh is a great place to live, and I want my taxes to go towards keeping it that way, not towards making profits for a big company.
Our councillors should tell us why they are pushing through these plans. They affect all of our services and the thousands of people who deliver them. We don`t think the public should be kept in the dark about all of this. We have to learn from the trams fiasco, not repeat it. The Lib Dems and the SNP said they were against privatisation during the election campaign so why are they doing this now? We have a right to know why they are breaking that promise and hurrying this through without proper consultation.”
A meeting will be held on Wednesday 27th July at 7pm in the Thistle Room in Meadowbank Sports Centre. Local councillors will be invited to discuss their plans with the community. Anyone who would like more information about the plans and hear what the councillors have to say is invited to attend.
I completely agree and will definitely be at the meeting on the 27th.
At least with the Trams you could see it coming – the Fiasco not the actual Tram!
This is another disaster waiting to happen. We know the risk of failure with private contractors. Why expose the people of Edinburgh to more hassle. Digging up Princes Street once was unfortunate, twice was careless. To extend that risk to revenues, benefits, finance, cleansing, refuse collection, etc etc is folly.
I think it is great that local people in Edinburgh are holding the council to account. If privatisation has anything to offer the council leaders should leave their bunker with confidence and explain what’s going on.
silence is unacceptable!
This is a very big deal for Edinburgh,the total value of these contracts is greater than the tram contract.
Yet the SNP and Liberal administration seems determined to vote to award these contracts without any real consultation or any mandate from us.
I don’t want big business to run these services.
So I will be going to the meeting at Meadowbank
The council seems to have lost its way. I lived in Portobello and had to fight against a deeply opposed superstore.right across from the closed but not forgotten outdoor pool, then went back to my roots in the old town where another development was the subject of a vigorous campaign that still ended up with a gap site in the middle of our world heritage site and a bunch of elderly people persuaded to decamp from some of the best examples of urban social housing – which is now mouldering and unoccupied, and now that summer is come and campaigners doing it on a shoestring might have their eyes off the ball, Canongate is up for grabs again. We watched Leith Walk’s bustle become hustle and Princess street become the most clapped out shopping street in Europe while after months of enforced inaction for tram works and no trams – that prevented the centenary commemorative walk for women’s suffrage I helped organise forced to take a route that was NOT along Princes Street, and if you want some other supremely unpopular actions taken without consultation there is the NOdeon and the Dissasembly Rooms and the no cherry trees in Nicholson Square to name a few. They have been up to their ears in privatisation for years, its no surprise that they want to hand over services, I can’t imagine what is needed for them to know that it is undemocratic and it doesn’t work.Why do we have to keep fighting to stand still? What a waste of energy that could be better used working with a co-operative council that listened.
I would urge all of the people of Edinburgh to contact their msp and urge them not to vote in favour of the privatisation plans, even at this “late date”. How dare they put private profit before the good, hard working people of this great city! Yes, refuse stinks, BUT NOT AS MUCH AS THESE CHARLATANS IN POWER!.
Comments are closed.