This morning the Policy and Sustainability Committee made up of 17 councillors from all parties will decide on the 2020 version of Edinburgh’s Christmas and Hogmanay, as well as a challenge from the Tory group on ending all Covid-19 road widenings put in place in recent weeks.
The council is in a contract with Underbelly who have provided entertainment for residents and visitors at Christmas and Hogmanay. We believe the contract is worth £800,000 paid by the council, but there are clearly other financial gains for the producers who will not divulge these owing to commercial confidentiality.
We wrote earlier this year in January an article designed to spark conversation about the events. You can read here Winter Festival events in Edinburgh are a disaster – discuss
There is a report being discussed this morning at the Policy and Sustainability Committee over new arrangements between the council and Underbelly. It includes a proposal that the Festive wheel and the Star Flyer will both be placed in East Princes Street Gardens as normal. All of this is prefaced by a public health rider that if the guidance does not allow any events at the end of the year, then these will not proceed.
Five local community councils have produced a written deputation demanding that this does not happen anywhere near East Princes Street Gardens where it took months to repair damage to the lawns. They also demand a public review of the winter festivals. Read that in full below.
ROADS and SPACES FOR PEOPLE
The council has put in place some new road designs in Edinburgh, including those on Morningside Road and outside The Balmoral where wands have been placed three deep to stop cars parking and allow people more space to spill out safely from the pavements.
The council is using the £5 million it received from The Scottish Government to make changes to the streets to keep all road users safe.
It is proposing to introduce the Low Traffic Network which has long been in the planning in East Craigs. Over 1300 people there object to the plans. Craigmount-East Craigs-North Gyle-Drumbrae Residents group have lodged a written deputation objecting to these measures which you can read in full below.
The coalition has produced an update on the Spaces for People programme saying that Low Traffic Networks will form part of the future plans, and claim that no other party objected to these being included in the plans before now. In response the Tories want the council to change all of the schemes already in place on streets such as Braid Road, Silverknowes Road and Links Gardens. They want the budget allocation of £924,000 to be spent on enhancing and improving current schemes. We think that item 6.11 might offer some sparky debate. Opposition councillors continue to demand consultation before implementation, but we are sure that the Transport Convener will remind them that the nature of the emergency government funding did not demand any ‘consultation’ at all.
The Transport Convener asked for a report on the benefits of having cycle lanes and cyclists on high streets rather than shoppers who arrive by car. In response to the report produced, the Conservative group of councillors want all the evaluation methodology to be published to the members of the committee, as they say the report fails to provide balanced analysis.
You can watch the meeting in full here on the Council website.
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Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
