When you vote on 5 May you are voting for your preferred candidate as your number one choice, and since the voting system is the Single Transferable Vote, you will also rank other candidates in numerical order.
Voters may cast a ballot for only one candidate or all of them – and opinion is divided on which way is best.
So that you can decide who to vote for we have gathered up all the political manifestos of the main political parties here. If you have any other manifestos which we have missed then please let us know.
The Returning Officer will calculate the quota which is the number of votes a candidate needs to get elected. This is different in each ward. The quota is worked out based on the number of councillor positions and the number of votes cast.
Each voter can only vote once but rather than put an X in one box you will be asked to rank candidates in numerical order according to your preference – with number 1 as the favourite. If there are two candidates from the same party it will be possible for you to vote for both if you wish.
The votes will be counted electronically at the EICC in Edinburgh on 6 May, and when the counting has finished, any candidate who has more number ones than they need to achieve the quota is elected.
So that the other votes are not wasted any votes above the quota are redistributed to the voter’s second favourite candidate and so on until the least popular are removed and councillor positions are filled.
The City of Edinburgh Council also explains the voting system here.
Alba Party manifesto – Alba Stands for Scotland
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Open in new tab The Communists’ Manifesto is being used by Richard Shillcock who is the sole candidate for the party in Edinburgh.
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Edinburgh Conservatives want to Clean Up OUR Capital
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Kevin Illingworth the independent candidate for the City Centre Ward has published his manifesto on his website here.
Edinburgh Green Group want to Think Global Act Local creating a Green Edinburgh for everyone
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Edinburgh Labour will be Investing in Edinburgh
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Liberal Democrats say they will be standing up for Edinburgh
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SNP Edinburgh want to create a European capital for the future
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Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
Dear Phyllis,
It’s very difficult to take any of the parties promises about planning in Edinburgh seriously.
Members of the Planning Committee, and a growing number of other Councillors, (including party leaders) have known that Edinburgh’s planning system has been fundamentally dishonest for more than a decade now.
It was acknowledged by Planning Dept staff during a Planning Services Engagement initiative in 2011, that providing members of the public and their Councillors with inaccurate and contradictory information was a recognised failing in Edinburgh’s planning system. Yet, despite their obligations as defined in the Councillors Code of Conduct, ( https://www.local.gov.uk/our-support/councillor-development/new-councillor-hub/councillors-role-0 ) nothing appears to have been done to address this.
As local residents know to their cost, (considerable in some cases) this leads to ‘planning disasters’, an expression used by locally elected politicians. It can, and does, cause acknowledged hardship and injustice, (including in one of our cases, structural damage to some of our houses). It also leads to years of needless stress for those who have to deal with incompetence, deception and coverup, in their attempt to reach the competent and verifiable evidence upon which the Scottish Government’s Planning and Architecture adviser has confirmed, decisions involving planning should be made. You might well ask why members of the public were left to do this at all.
When members of staff in CEC Planning Dept claim the ability to see into the future, yet even those at senior level can’t, (or won’t) verify what developers are applying for or their Planning Committee has approved, we know there is something seriously wrong. As tax payers, we have been paying our Heads of Planning six figure salaries for some years now. It’s difficult to see how this level of service is/was providing value for money.
When the SPSO claim they began investigating a complaint before it was actually raised, we knew we were not going to receive the level of service we were led to believe we would. They claimed a new development had been built both closer to our houses and further away from them at the same time, i.e. in two places at once. Despite pointing out that this was totally illogical, technically inaccurate and physically impossible, it made no difference. We brought 19 examples of maladministration, (as defined by the Scottish Parliament) to their attention over three separate cases. We can see nothing in the SPSO ACT 2002 which would suggest SPSO staff have authority to over-rule the Scottish Parliament, yet they failed to address these. We asked what they felt they were if not maladministration. They could provide no other definition. As tax payers, we are now paying this ‘creature of statute’ £4m for this level of service.
We recently provided members of the Planning Committee with some of the contradictory information we had received over the years and asked who they believed and who they felt was guilty of deception. They failed to respond. How are the Planning Committee supposed to make the good planning decisions they are obliged to make if they are unable to tell the difference between fact and incompetent nonsense?
Matters reached an all time low when one of our local Councillors actively encouraged maladministration within CEC Planning Dept by recommending staff refuse to answer our questions. Questions she and her fellow Councillors should have addressed years ago. Despite their obligation to serve the people of Edinburgh etc, she also recommended that Councillors ignore our questions as well. Despite the Chief Executive’s recent claim that ‘the old boys network’ was a thing of the past, this whole sorry mess would seem to suggest otherwise.
We have asked party leaders on the Council why they failed to address the many issues we have raised over a number of years and what steps they would be taking to improve both planning in the capitol and the Council’s reputation. To date, Cammy Day is the only one to have replied. Ironic really, as it was a member of his party who recommended our correspondence should be ignored.
If you would find it useful for us to provide copies of recent correspondence to Councillors, (it names some of those whom we felt had failed to comply with their obligations) I will be happy to do this.
Kind regards,
John Colledge (on behalf of a number of Brunstane Bank residents)
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