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City of Edinburgh Council (Portobello Park) Bill Committee 26 March 2014

26 Mar 2014 · S4 · City of Edinburgh Council (Portobello Park) Bill Committee

Item of business

City of Edinburgh Council (Portobello Park) Bill: Consideration Stage

Jennifer Peters Watch on SPTV

The City of Edinburgh Council’s open space action plan, which supports its open space strategy, defines Portobello park as“Large open space not ... meeting standard”.The council does not classify it as “access to playspace”. The City of Edinburgh Council manages the park but does not maintain it as it maintains other parks in Portobello.For the past few years, it has required several residents to call the parks department before the grass has been cut, and last summer you could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that it was cut. That makes the park practically unusable with small children. The railings are in poor repair and are never painted, there is one bench and there are no formal paths, no planting and no swings or other facilities such as can be found in the other parks in the area and around Edinburgh.The park is still loved by locals, however, and despite those adverse conditions a race, a park clean-up and a party on the park were all held last year with significant attendance. The park continues to be used by runners, by local childminders and nurseries for nature walks, for the odd kick-around and by the much-maligned dog walkers. The park is free to everyone 24/7, whereas the facilities that will be provided by the school will not be and their access will be limited. It is unethical for the City of Edinburgh Council to fail to maintain the park and then to claim that the park is underused.Joppa United used to play and train on the park, and football tournaments were regularly held there. A July 2011 email from Edinburgh Leisure confirmed that Joppa United played on Sunday mornings from September 2010 to May 2011 and trained there every Tuesday evening. A training light was installed on the pavilion to allow the club to do that, the costs for which were split between Edinburgh Leisure and the club. However, the goalposts were removed by the City of Edinburgh Council and Joppa United subsequently disbanded, as it could find no other affordable training or playing sites.At the moment, it is possible to run or walk a circuit around the perimeter of the park. However, the proposed new path across the south side would allow a pedestrian to enter only at either the Park Avenue side or the Hope Lane side and to cross to the other side. That would interrupt the permeability of the site. The tiny amount of 0.6 hectares that would be left, which is dissected by a path, would not be usable for the purposes for which the park is currently used. The drawing in my evidence shows the amount of remaining parkland.In addition, building a school on the park will change people’s relationship with the space, and locals may have concerns about being seen hanging around what will be, in effect, the school grounds. None of the other schools in the city has open access—they are secure by design; yet, there seems to be no concern over the security of the Portobello park development, in apparent contradiction to the council’s own policy.The council has admitted, in its report to the planning committee on 4 December 2013, that the proposed replacement “new park” on the current school site might be a greater walking distance from areas south of Milton Road than Portobello park currently is.

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City of Edinburgh Council (Portobello Park) Bill Committee 26 March 2014

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