Tram concessions – Concierge honoured – Getting outdoors – Social Media – Speed Dating

The SNP is today welcoming plans to ensure that Edinburgh residents aged 60 and over will be able to travel free on the city’s trams which
are set to be operating by the summer of 2014.

Colin Keir, SNP MSP for Edinburgh Western, said that the City of Edinburgh Council had now ‘seen sense’ and agreed to plans for implementing a local concession scheme using their own funds without the potential risk of cutting off Lothian Buses services.

Mr Keir said:

“This is good news for Edinburgh – securing the future of the national concessionary bus scheme was my major concern and is an on-going key
commitment for the Scottish Government, good bus services are vital to the elderly, disabled and injured military veterans.

“Credit where credit is due; the City of Edinburgh Council must be commended for agreeing to examine ways of funding the local
concessionary scheme for the trams in a way which safeguards local bus services in Edinburgh and Lothians.”

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You can read and listen to our reporter Thomas Haywood’s interviews here with Billy Garioch who has retired at concierge at the Caley after 50 years of service there.

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Our photo today shows Princes Street Gardens last summer. Currently the lawns are undergoing returfing and reseeding works so they don’t look just quite as green. To help you get out and about in the 140 parks run by the Council remember to download the Edinburgh Outdoors app which gives you a lot of detail about the parks and their features.

We made a short video of our interview with Sally Kerr who is head of the council’s web presence, and who has been responsible for the development of the app too. You can watch this and all our other videos on our YouTube channel.

We are also featuring another garden video this morning about the Duddingston Community Garden in our article here.

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We like to think we are pretty big on Twitter…. Well we do have 9,436 followers which is quite a big number. Of course there are services which allow you to grow your social media presence by paying for it, but we favour simple continual engagement with real people on Twitter and Facebook. Anyway it was quite nice to see that we are featured in the list of ‘Influential Edinburgh Tweeters’ over here…..   Don’t worry it won’t go to our heads….

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Ahead of the worst day and week in the year for all you singletons out there The Skinny offers a chink of hope. You could perhaps be persuaded to try Speed Dating to find Mr or Ms Right…the difference is that it is being held at Edinburgh Dungeon! If anyone is going would they like to write an article about it for us? Use the Submit your Story feature here or email us theedinburghreporter@gmail.com

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Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.