The graffiti in Dalry Community Park appeared soon after it opened. Now there is graffiti on the approach path from Russell Road and over the concrete used in the construction of the park.
We met with Cllr Ross McKenzie (Independent) who says he has been trying to get something done about it, but the graffiti is still there, and has probably been added to over the month since we first wrote about it.
This is part of a new walking and cycling link from Roseburn to Duff Street which had a £12 million budget, but in the end cost £17 million with the council contributing the extra £5 million.
Cllr McKenzie said he is “pleased with many aspects” but continues to call for action on the graffiti – and most recently on the maintenance of the trees which have been planted in the park.
He said: “I’m really pleased to have the investment come to the area. It’s not entirely new as a park – it was previously the Dalry Community Park. It was a train station at one time, but the regeneration of the park is a huge benefit to the area.
“Now about six months after the opening there are still a lot of outstanding issues that I’ve sought to highlight with the officers. Even prior to opening, the most obvious and glaring issue was that it doesn’t actually connect to the canal, and there’s still quite a lot of awkwardness around the the Dundee street crossing. Between the canal and the Western Approach road will be addressed, probably quite far into the future as part of another project.
“So that’s a bit of a frustration, but once you actually get down here into the park, I think what you can see here is a great community asset with perhaps a few snagging issues that we need to get on top of over the next few months.”
Following our articles last month about the graffiti in the park which is really just tags, not any original art, we asked what the council is doing about removing it.
Cllr McKenzie said: “This is something I have had a lot of emails about, something I’ve brought up with officers. I understand that there will be a free site put into place, and there is discussion about potential for CCTV. Certainly, the way I would prefer, that the council dealt with graffiti, is by increasing the quality of it, and there is funding available, and funding in place, for an art project. I believe that’s been procured by the contractor who have the contract to maintain the landscape.”
This would not mean spaces for people to actually create graffiti, although the councillor agreed that there is also potential for those. But what he means is a project “to provide funding to a group of artists to do a specific piece of work that is informed by community engagement”.
He agreed that this park and the path leading up to it was almost an open invitation to the so-called graffiti artists. He said: “More towards the Russell Road end, there’s a lot of big, empty spaces that were just begging to be tagged. And I think my understanding is that those spaces will be prioritised for an art project.
“I think the project was late in delivery in many different ways, and perhaps there was a little bit of a rush to get it opened before all these aspects were dealt with. But certainly when I’ve raised it, I’ve been reassured that there is a strategy in place, but we’re just not quite there yet.”
The trees
As we cycled towards the park with Cllr McKenzie we had begun talking about the trees. Although hundreds of trees were felled to make way for the path some 5,000 trees were planted over five years as part of this development. But with the dry weather there is a worry that the trees will die off due to lack of water.
(The local councillor says 800 trees were felled but the council has said 450 on its website.)
Cllr McKenzie said: “Around 800 trees were chopped down for this project. That was really controversial, and some of them were in good condition, and a lot of people opposed that. They were reassured that there would be a survival rate of around 40% – so 2,000 trees out of 5,000 being planted over five years.
“A number of people have been in touch with me this week to say they’re concerned that there won’t be 40% of those 5,000 alive by the end of the week if they don’t get watered through the unusually dry spell of weather.”
“Just while we’ve been out volunteers are out trying to water these trees, but obviously there’s so many of them that it’s going to take quite an effort. So I’ve written to the contractor, the project management, and the chief executive, to say that this really needs to be prioritised, and something is being done.
“I struggle to ask people and say, “Come and water the trees” when your council tax has paid quite substantial sums to people to look after these trees. But there are certainly some community minded people out there who are already doing that.
“And there are these little black tubes next to the bigger trees that you can actually pour water just directly in but the problem is really getting water on site.
“There’s a community garden down on the Russell Road end and they have been having to bring water on site.”
Since our talk on Friday Cllr McKenzie has said on social media that watering has been undertaken by the contractor who have a contract to maintain the site.
Great to see the whole site being watered this morning. I was reassured in conversation with the contractor that the vast majority of the trees are doing well.
— Ross McKenzie (@rosssmckenzie.bsky.social) 17 May 2025 at 12:01
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Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
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