Breakfast idea
Looking for somewhere to have breakfast? Kerry has it covered in her most recent article here.
Eggbreak has popped up at The Spence in Gleneagles Townhouse on St Andrew Square. Running until 30 August, locals, visitors, hotel guests and members can indulge in Eggbreak’s signature bold breakfast plates beneath the elegance of The Spence’s glass-domed atrium.
This week at the council
In the second week of August after recess is supposed to have finished there are still no meetings of substantive committees being held at the City Chambers.
Here is the agenda for this week:
Monday, 11th August, 2025
- 9.30 am Licensing Sub-Committee – Dean of Guild Court Room – City Chambers. This meeting deals with parades and other types of licence including Market traders.
- In relation to parades – these are the parades to be noted by the committee. The Council has limited powers available regarding the control of parades. These powers should only normally be exercised to prevent public disorder, risk to public safety, damage to property or excessive disruption to the life of the community.
- The Scottish Government Guidance to local authorities on marches and parades is here.
Tuesday, 12th August, 2025
- 9.30 am Licensing Sub-Committee – Dean of Guild Court Room – City Chambers. This meeting is being held partly in private in relation to most of the taxi driver licence applications. The rest of the agenda is filled with licence applications for short term lets, and the documents are not all freely available online. The meeting is open to the public but is not recorded on the council’s webcast.
- 10.00 am – 5.00 pm Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work Committee – Dean of Guild Court Room – City Chambers. Today the council will decided whether or not to continue the suspension of allocating any council houses to people other than those on the Gold list until March 2026. But the difficulty is that even continuing the policy which is already in place for another year, there would still be hundreds of families in unsuitable accommodation each night.
Shelter Scotland director Alison Watson said: “The City of Edinburgh Council is facing an impossible task without enough homes or resources.
“The situation has not emerged overnight; it is the result of decades of underinvestment in social housing and a failure to provide councils with the tools they need to fulfil their legal duties.
“The decision to suspend the normal letting policy reflects the scale of the crisis and the urgent need to protect the 3,691 children currently stuck in temporary accommodation, as well as to prevent rising levels of rough sleeping.
“However, with the council forecasting that it will still be breaking unsuitable accommodation laws 517 times every night at the end of this suspension, it is clear the council needs to do more to deliver suitable temporary and permanent homes.
“No council should have lawbreaking on this scale as part of its long-term plans. That’s why all levels of government, including Scottish and UK, must provide the resources and investment to deliver the social homes our capital city desperately needs.”
Shelter has also spoken out about the need for The Scottish Govnerment to make more money available for homelessness in Edinburgh and elsewhere. Read more here.
It cost the council £53 million to provide temporary accommodation for 7,909 households who are experiencing homelessness in 2024/25.
Shelter Scotland said that the government must step in to help as without it the council faces an “impossible task”.
Wednesday, 13th August, 2025
- 9.30 am Planning Local Review Body (Panel 1) – Dean of Guild Court Room – City Chambers
Thursday, 14th August, 2025
Friday, 15th August, 2025
Fringe star goes swimming
On Sunday morning Aussie rising star Darby James, at the Fringe with his award-winning nautical themed one-person musical Little Squirt, joined the Portobello-based Edinburgh Blue Balls, a men’s mental health and cold water swimming group for a sunny sea swim.
Duddingston Low Road has reopened
A short entry on EdinTravel’s social media has advised that the long closed Duddingston Low Road has reopened for pedestrians and cyclists. BUT there is still a stretch of about 120 metres where cyclists are asked to dismount.
Earlier in July Historic Environment Scotland advised their progress with the Radical Road as follows: “A risk of rock fall was also identified on Samson’s Ribs earlier this year, and as a result, it was necessary to close the Duddingston Low Road and footpath to ensure the safety of the public. We are currently exploring a range of public protection measures to enable safe access to the pavement for pedestrians and dismounted cyclists, and work is currently underway to put in place the required infrastructure.
“To prioritise public safety, we’ve had to review and adjust how resources and work programmes are allocated across the Park. This has resulted in a slight delay to some of the works on the Radical Road, but it remains our commitment to partially reopen the Radical Road as soon as it is safe to do so.”
So now the Duddingston Low Road has been opened – but the problems on the Radical Road still persist.
The Big Beach Busk
This could be your time to shine if you are an amateur singer or you play an instrument. The only rule is “Everyone Be Nice”. it takes place on the last Saturday in August.
