February is often described as the month of love – and one thing the council has loved this month is a Full Council meeting. We saw a standard meeting, special meeting to allocate Edinburgh Visitor Levy funds, and finally the main council budget meeting.
In each we put our best forward in proposals that prioritised people and planet as always. Ultimately the ‘mighty’ (in numbers only) Labour administration propped up by Conservatives and Lib Dems passed their budget on the 26th. This means they missed out on expanding free bus travel for asylum seekers and refugees, increased funding for anti-poverty measures, community cohesion projects, better road safety for pedestrians and wide climate mitigation measures.
Greens will continue to push for public money to be used for the benefit of the public, despite the best efforts of other parties who simply see Budget Day as an opportunity to trade political favours.
We look forward to catching up with members on our latest work.
Councillor highlights from the month
Asked to pick one highlight from the month, our councillors chose:
Alex Staniforth
Alex has spent February working on the Green visitor levy proposal and Green budget. We presented a budget for climate, equality and housing but despite hard work in negotiation the Labour administration chose to accept future Tory cuts instead. Read more about the visitor levy decision and the council budget.
Alys Mumford
Alys has been working with traveller families to fight eviction by the Scottish Government, and trying to get the council to take their duties towards anti-discrimination seriously by providing culturally-appropriate accommodation options for them.
Ben Parker
Ben developed a Green budget proposal for the council’s Housing Revenue Account which made use of new powers secured by Green MSPs in the Housing bill which allowed a transfer of general council revenue. This would have allowed the council to limit rent rises for its tenants from 7% to 5% whilst retaining the same level of investment in new homes and improvements to existing homes. This was done by raising taxes on second homes – bringing to life our aim to redistribute wealth. Read more about the council budget here.
Chas Booth
When the council presented its report on its own climate emissions last year, which showed that emissions are way off track and we’re set to exceed our emissions target this year, Greens brought an amendment asking for a climate summit to explore measures to get back on track. That climate summit happened earlier in February, and Chas has been using the opportunity to push the council to be bolder on decarbonisation, especially among buildings and the council fleet.
Claire Miller
In preparation for the upcoming consultation on a Safer Drug Consumption Facility in the city centre ward, Claire visited The Thistle in Glasgow to see first hand how an SDCF can be designed and operate, understand more about the practicalities of how treatment and support is provided, and get a chance to ask staff questions about the services they deliver.
Dan Heap
Dan has been working on culture and communities-related Visitor Levy and annual budget proposals, presenting proposals to transform Gorgie Farm with £1m of capital funding; set up friends of parks and cemeteries grant scheme; a Gaelic cultural fund; and support a pilot of a public diner, which will help people access low-cost, healthy food. The final VL budget includes money for public toilets, and Dan is campaigning for some of this to come Gorgie, after the public toilet there was sold-off to a private developer.
Jule Bandel
Jule has been taking time off due to illness.
Kayleigh O’Neill
Kayleigh has been preparing for her next Local Access Forum and joining the Lothian Buses Shareholder Forum. She has also had hopeful meetings with the Licensing Convenor and officers to develop a consultation on Accessibility of Taxis and Private Hire Cars.
Steve Burgess
Steve has continued to support development of the former-bowling green at Prestonfield into a community growing garden. Everyone is welcome to a planting event and workshop on pruning fruit trees run by ELGT on Saturday 28th February at 11-2pm. There will also be some fun and games!
Susan Rae
Susan has been taking a short time off for health reasons.
Green-aligned Independent councillor, Ross McKenzie
Asked to pick one highlight from the month, Ross chose:
Ross has been working with the ‘Easy Walkers’ group in Broomhouse to identify barriers to walking and wheeling in the Broomhouse area (there are many). Look out for their petition at the Transport & Environment Committee in April, when they will be seeking to ensure that footways in the area are brought up to a better standard.
Committee updates
Committee updates and other things to look out for in the coming month.
Policy and Sustainability
The council is due to consider its new policy on AI at committee in March. Thank you to all the branch members and policy specialists who have fed in to our response to the initial draft of this policy, which have been passed on to council officers. We will be scrutinising the new policy to see if our comments have been taken on board.
Culture and Communities
In February, committee agreed Green plans for a new management rules scheme to ensure that buskers can play their music and earn money, but whilst also protecting resident needs to live and work in their homes without excessive noise. Committee also agreed Dan Heap’s call for the council to request the immediate re-establishment of access to toilet facilities in Edinburgh Leisure facilities.
Equalities
Claire wrote about why Greens were forced to withdraw a full council motion about the imprisoned Palestine Action hunger strikers because of the UK government’s extreme decision to proscribe PA as a terrorist organisation.