SCC CHAIR’S REPORT, for meeting of May 14, 2018

  1. Community Councils and Locality Committees I – on 16 April, as agreed at the last meeting of the Community Council, I met with Cllr Mandy Watt, Convener of the South East Locality Committee, to raise our concerns that Community Councils could be sidelined from engagement with the formal structures of Locality Committees, as Neighbourhood Partnerships, Community Councils’ existing network for formal engagement with the Council, could be done away with under the forthcoming review by Edinburgh Partnership. Mandy gave her commitment to engaging Community Councils in the new structures and to explore means of ensuring this would happen.

  2. Community Councils and Locality Committees II – I attended the SE Locality Committee meeting on 23 April. Ninety minutes was spent discussing if/how Community Councils should be engaged in the new structures. Thanks to motions brought forward by Steve Burgess and Cameron Rose, a position was eventually agreed that Community Councils would have the opportunity to engage in Committee discussion ‘at the discretion of the Chair’, although would not have voting rights. I didn’t think this ‘at the discretion of the Chair’ was good enough.

  3. Community Councils and Locality Committees III – on 30 April, I attended the South Central Neighbourhood Partnership meeting, at which Community Councils’ engagement with the Locality Committees was discussed. Cameron Rose, chairing the meeting, proposed that a dedicated meeting of councillors, community councils and City Council officers be organised to discuss a positive outcome to this challenge. This was agreed. Details of this meeting are awaited.

  4. South Central Neighbourhood Partnership – at the 30 April meeting, I also engaged in workshop discussions on promoting recycling and reinforcing community safety messaging, two priorities from the SE Locality Improvement Plan.

  5. Nicholson Square Gardens Community Clean-Up – on 5 May, I attended this event, along with Liz Logie, which was well supported. As part of the event, notes of interest were taken in supporting a Friends of Nicholson Square Gardens organisation. An initial meeting of interested parties was to be held in the following week. Liz committed to representing SCC at this meeting.

    6. Tim May, 2018