Pentlands Neighbourhood Partnership meeting – Port of Leith appoint Welfare Rights Officer – Gorebridge gets regeneration funding – Peploe – Burns
The Pentlands Neighbourhood Partnership meets tonight at 7:00 p.m in Oxgangs Library, 343 Oxgangs Road North, EH13 9LY Details of what will be discussed here on the council website.
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Port of Leith Housing Association (PoLHA) has appointed its first Welfare Rights Officer.
Craig Samuel has joined the Association on a 14 month secondment from the City of Edinburgh Advice Shop.
Responsible for helping with the take up of welfare state benefits and representation with tribunal work up to and including upper tier level, Craig will be on hand to offer expert guidance to PoLHA’s 3,500 tenants.
He said:-
“I’m delighted to have joined PoLHA and the fact I was born in Leith made it an easy decision to take up this great opportunity to offer my help and to ensure PoLHA is well represented with our voice being heard within local government.”
Craig’s appointment has lead to the creation of PoLHA’s Welfare Rights Service, strengthening the Association’s existing advice services for help in managing debt, affordable warmth advice to help with fuel debt and advice and support to maintain tenancies.
Keith Anderson, Chief Executive of PoLHA, said:
“Craig’s role and the creation of an additional service will greatly benefit our tenants at a time which is set to impact on them significantly.”
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The historic town of Gorebridge, will be the focus for regeneration funding, Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs, Fiona Hyslop announced today.
The council has been awarded £548,500 of funding by the Scottish Government for essential repairs and improvements to its historic heartland.
The funding, which is distributed through Historic Scotland’s Conservation Area Regeneration Scheme (CARS) sees 12 council areas, including Midlothian Council, allocated funds from the scheme.
The initiative aims to encourage local authorities to invest in their historic environment, whilst helping to stimulate economic regeneration. The Cabinet Secretary made the announcement as she visited one of the areas in Midlothian which has benefited from previous CARS funding in Dalkeith.
Dalkeith was awarded £402,638 in the 2nd Round of CARS funding in 2008. Since then the funding has provided improvements to the streetscape on the High Street, repairs to several key buildings including the Tollbooth and the Cross Keys Hotel, a former coaching inn, and small grants to home owners and shop keepers.
The Cabinet Secretary met with the Project Leader and representatives from the council during her visit and was able to view first hand how the funding has been invested back into the area.
The Cabinet Secretary said:
“It has been a great privilege to see first hand how this investment programme is continuing to benefit communities such as Dalkeith across Scotland.
“Our historic environment plays a key role in communities and this funding provides an opportunity to invest back into the historic fabric and back into the heart of communities.
“It also provides the opportunity to help stimulate economic regeneration, a key priority in today’s economic climate, be that through a new end use or rejuvenating an existing facility.
“I am delighted to announce this funding, which will benefit communities the length and breath of Scotland, and will give more areas than ever before the opportunity to benefit from this investment.”
Midlothian Council Leader, Councillor Bob Constable said:-
“We are obviously delighted to have been awarded this new funding. The regeneration work undertaken in Dalkeith has had a huge impact not only on the condition of some of the town’s historic buildings and the public realm but also in changing the public perception of the town centre.
“Gorebridge is a tremendous example of a small town with an almost intact 19th Century Historic Core and I’m sure the new CARS project will bring a huge number of benefits for residents, businesses and the wider community.”
Since 2005, there have been four CARS application rounds. The funding, which is allocated to local authorities by Historic Scotland is available to provide financial assistance for Conservation Area based regeneration and conservation initiatives.
Open to Local and National Park Authorities, community groups and other third sector organisations delivering multi-funded projects it can be utilised for a number of purposes from priority repairs and small grants to homeowners and retailers to providing traditional craft training opportunities.
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One of the exhibitions we have yet to see is the Peploe at the National Gallery. Have you been? What did you think? Tickets are £7 and you have plenty of time as it runs until 23 June 2013. Tickets here.
The National Galleries of Scotland describes the exhibition for us:-
“Discover beautifully composed still lifes and stunning landscapes of France and Scotland in this extensive retrospective of SJ Peploe, the second exhibition in our Scottish Colourist series.
Samuel John Peploe (1871-1935) was the eldest and most successful of the four artists popularly known as The Scottish Colourists, along with FCB Cadell, JD Fergusson and GL Hunter. Peploe is considered by many to be the leader of the group and indeed it was his friendship with the others which bound the four together. Born in Edinburgh, Peploe lived in the Scottish capital all his life, apart from two years spent in Paris between 1910 and 1912.
Most celebrated for his beautiful still lifes, Peploe depicted a selection of props, including roses, tulips and coffee pots, placed in an infinite variety of combinations and lovingly painted in his studio. The care which Peploe lavished on his still lifes contrasts with the more spontaneous technique with which he created his stunning French and Scottish landscapes, painted en plein air from 1896. At certain periods Peploe also painted figure studies of beauty and significance, including images of his wife and their two sons.
This important exhibition will bring together more than 100 of Peploe’s most significant paintings from public and private collections around the world, including highlights such as the 1905 masterpiece,The Coffee Pot, early 1920s work, Red and Pink Roses, Oranges and Fan, and a selection of the original objects used within Peploe’s still life arrangements.”
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Something we missed last week during all the Burns frenzy is that the official record of his birth is on display at General Register House until 14 February. More information here….. about the Bard and his legacy.
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
