Minutes of AGM held on 11th June 2008

Marchmont and Sciennes Community Council
Minutes of AGM held on 11th June 2008,
St Catherine’s Argyle Church Community Hall, Grange Road
7pm

Sederunt :
Susie Agnew(Chair), Anne Laird (vice chair), Susanna Lacey(secretary) Sarah Marchbanks (Treasurer)

Peng Lee Yap( FOMBL), Muriel Robertson(Magpie), Lindsay Thomson (Lothian and Borders Police), Mike Shields (CEC Service for Communities), Tony Reeves (Grange Association), Alastair Philp (Neighbourhood Partnership)

Ruth Stroud, Tina Cumming, Linda Smith, John Simon, Roseanna Agnew, Fiona Scott, Ken Dougall, Sarah Sandow, Cllr Marilyn McLaren, Alastair Philp, Cllr Cameron Rose, Masoud Malik, Richard Beauchamp, Roslyn Evans, Adam McMinn, Nan McMinn, Tony Reeves (Grange Association) Colette Meyer, Thomas Underwood, Melanie Main, Dorothy Ryle, Brian Harris.

Apologies:
Alison Johnstone, Cllr Gordon McKenzie, Anne Laing, Cherry Ledlie.

Minutes of previous AGM
Proposed Tina Cumming, seconded Linda Smith

Matters Arising:
Streetscape: there has been a communication regarding the wishes of local residents for paving stones rather than asphalt to maintain the traditional ambience of the area. This matter is still ongoing.
For the amount of money spent the results are not very impressive. However the work is still unfinished. If money is spent on paving slabs, lorries can still damage them. When planters are supplied there is no grant money for maintenance of planters. The cycle route through the streetscape area needs clarified.

Action: It was suggested that MSCC should write to the council. Susie Agnew will do this.

Chairperson’s report:
Chairperson’s annual report 2008
The main issues this year which we have discussed and acted upon are:
Streetscape in Roseneath, Meadows Place closure, Grange cemetery, Rubbish collection, Lunch club, Parking zones, HMO’s , and Christmas Party.

Firstly, in no particular order, the streetscape of Roseneath which was intended to enhance the environment of Roseneath Street. We had a presentation by the council and we made considerable suggestions and criticisms, some of which were acted upon, most importantly that they did not proceed with widening the pavement on the Argyle Place side of the corner with Roseneath Street. The works are nearly complete now and I hope that they will have been worth it. Certainly the pavement on the north side is not as wide as originally intended because of drainage from the tenements, but perhaps this is lucky as the extra width has not deterred the double parking and when the buses stop, there is considerable congestion.

The possible closure of Meadow Place caused considerable controversy both for and against it. However the majority of opinion was concerned with the potential dangerous knock on effect that the closure would cause to the junction at the foot of Marchmont Road and there seemed surprise that the council were not looking at the junction as one entity and merely considering the advantage to cyclists at Meadow Place. The figures of accidents at Meadow Place and Marchmont Road did not present a justified case for closing it. At a very emotive meeting the council made a weak presentation and interestingly, although Spokes was well represented, not all their members were in favour of the closure. The meeting finished with the council officials agreeing to look at it again but we have not heard from them since.

The year started with the introduction of a charge for special rubbish uplifts. We had a presentation by the cleansing department, but they had already decided to go ahead with it and agreed to monitor the amount of fly tipping. Again, I have not heard any more from them, neither have I heard complaints or comments about increased rubbish on the streets.

The Grange cemetery has featured often on our agendas and we have undertaken an ambitious programme to find funding to re-erect the headstones which have been laid flat for safety reasons, which is a national policy. Having acquired a list of over 500 flattened stones, I found that the Scottish Genealogical Society has nearly completed cataloguing the inscriptions on the headstones so I have asked them to add the inscriptions to my list. However they are taking a long time, so I plan to start matching inscriptions to the flattened headstones ourselves in the hope of finding individual funding
for some of them.

Another project which is proving frustrating is the lunch club proposed by Mr. Malik. He and I have had meetings with Karen Watson at Marchmont St Giles and the Church is very keen to support the idea. There are some cultural difficulties concerning the menu but the main problem is the venue. Although Marchmont St Giles new hall would be ideal, it is very booked up and not really available, Karen has said that she would ask St Catherine’s but they are without a minister at present and not in a position to make decisions. Karen herself is very busy and progress on the lunch club is slow.

In October Hugh Leather and I attended a transport meeting as they had ideas to tweek the controlled parking zones. We asked them to amalgamate some of zones 7 and 8 with zone S1and this idea was well received and we believe that it will happen. Meanwhile residents in parts of those zones have been given permission to park in some of S1 which has relieved the situation hugely.

The subject of HMO properties has recently come to the forefront again following a website on the students union page called the” right to rent” speaking out against the possibility of imposing a quota of HMO’s in the area. In May, Margo MacDonald MSP attended our meeting and heard many points of view including that of the president of the student union. The students undoubtedly bring a vibrancy to the area and it is probably thanks to their presence that we have such good local shops, and recently an increase in cafes. However the permanent residents in the neighbourhood find that too many students in each staircase mean that such things as the stair cleaning rota is not adhered to, the garden is not attended to, the noise is too great and there is a general deterioration of the stair community. Following last month’s meeting, Councillors |Mark McInnes and Marilyn McLaren have taken up the issue and are planning a meeting with our office bearers to discuss a way forward.

On a happier note, we had a most successful Christmas tree lighting party. It was credit to the organisers that despite the weather there was such a good turn-out.

Over the year I have done a huge amount of correspondence informally by e-mail which are too numerous to list. In addition I have written letters about the no. 24 bus, several letters about bicycle access to James Gillespie’s primary school, and several letters to various council departments about retaining the youth worker at the Eric Liddell centre, the latter being successful.

I cannot avoid a mention about the Meadows Festival. It was run by a small group of individual volunteers, who included our very own Susanna. To take on such a huge project was valiant in the extreme and I am sure involved a lot of work and effort. It was undoubtedly a resounding success and we owe the organisers a sincere vote of thanks. Our community council had a presence there all weekend.

I owe my personal thanks to the office bearers without whom I could not have done this job. Initially Hugh Leather was the secretary and he revolutionised the technology of our community council and generally made a big impact. He passed on much of his technical expertise to Susanna who is also a fantastic secretary. It is hard to understand how many e-mails and how much paper work passes by Susanna, who deals with it efficiently and with good humour and I am very grateful to her. Sarah Marchbank as treasurer has had a busy year with helping the Marchmont and Sciennes Business Association, receiving grant money for street improvements outwith the streetscape in Roseneath, and the regular outlays, again all dealt with efficiently and cheerfully. Alastair Philp is an excellent representative on the neighbourhood partnership, reporting back to us clearly and concisely; and Anne Laird, as vice chair, has been a constant and welcome support to me, as well as remaining our spokesman on HMO’s.
So that is a résumé of the past year. What about the future. I am disappointed that we have had such a poor turn out of community councillors at many meetings. We have had 11 meetings and officially those who have not attended at least 6 of those meetings should be resigning. But I am not asking you to resign, or wanting you to resign, but I am asking you to become active in the work of the community council. In the Autumn, I intend to raise the profile of the community council, and get out there and tell people that we exist. See you in September with renewed vigour!

Secretary’s report:
As you know I took over as secretary from Hugh Leather who had taken over previously from Tina Cumming. Both of these were excellent secretaries for me to follow. Tina kept everyone informed, by e-mail and by sharing of documents, of what was happening in the area and at Edinburgh City Council. She increased my interest in the local community of MSCC. Then Hugh came along with his blog and added a new dimension to the procedures. I have continued with the blog entries, ably assisted by Hugh at the beginning. I have also continued with e-mail communications to members of MSCC to inform of blog entries and the other communications I receive. This was for the benefit for those members who did not want to access the blog regularly but who wanted to be kept informed. I have also re-established the previous links with Newington Library so that minutes, agendas and other MSCC communications will be available for those members who do not have access to the internet.

As secretary, I receive an enormous amount of communications from Edinburgh City Council, Police reports and various other groups. Most recently there has been a request from other community councils and the Grange Association to share minutes and agendas. At a meeting of office bearers it was decided not to include the minutes of other groups in our blog as we have a lot of material on the blog already. It was decided rather to post the dates and times of other meetings in our MSCC calendar as well as a link to their websites.

Personally, I have attended as MSCC representative the SPP3-HMO meeting at Victoria Quay, the Magpie AGM meeting at the Croquet Club and a CEC training session for community councils.

Among the communications received and discussed at meetings have been Environmental Fora, Training Sessions at CEC, NHS Consultations, School Closures, Meadows Place Closure, Controlled Parking, Special Uplifts, Grange Cemetery, Cycle Racks, Buses, Neighbourhood Partnership, 3m’s youth Partnership. Issues which are still ongoing are Lunch Club, licenses for events on the Meadows, and HMO licenses.

Treasurer’s report:
Liabilities include £2500 for the Traders Association. This year we have spent more than has come in but we still have a healthy bank balance. We still have to receive an extra streetscape grant and we have until mid September to spend this money. A printed treasurer’s account was available.

AOCB
There should be more trees in the area as there are some gaps where trees have died but have not been replanted. Mike Shields informed that there is a city wide budget for trees with 30 trees planned for Edinburgh South. This can be discussed further in September.

The AGM was drawn to a close.