Following recent wheelie bin fires at the Dip just off Lasswade Road which destroyed the skatepark the Police have been working with my office and the community to provide a more active presence in the area.

It is important that kids use and enjoy the park but some of the recent anti-social behaviour and vandalism is unacceptable. Following extra Police presence over the summer reports of drinking and anti-social behaviour had decreased but I understand these problems have been reoccurring in recent weeks. I am working with the Police to address these issues and am hopeful we should now see a decrease in illegal activities.

Bothy Success – Funding Raised for Bothy Toilet and MoreIn more hopeful news I am glad to report there has been progress on the Bothy project. See below update from Friends of Burdiehouse Burn Valley Park:

A big thank you to everyone who contributed to the campaign to raise money to complete the work on the Bothy toilet. Over £600 was raised through individual donations by text and bank transfers. This money has been used to commission a ‘green toilet’ that uses rainwater collected through the roof.

We’re very grateful for all the donations. The Bothy’s looking much better, but there’s still some work to do on other parts of the Bothy. We’ve applied for help from a housing association and are delighted to announce that the application has been successful. The wonderful people at Home Housing Association have agreed to help support additional work on the Bothy and we’ll have more details of that in next month’s newsletter.  We’re also hopeful of getting some ‘in kind’ support from the contractors working with Home Housing Association as well to help with the decoration. This is fantastic news and means that we will be should be able to complete the Bothy in the near future. We can’t give a firm date as yet, but we will get an update from Bruce at the meeting. Bruce deserves heaps of praise for what is now  years of hard work it has taken to achieve Edinburgh’s first Community Asset Transfer and oversee the refurbishment and repair of the Bothy as a base for the Friends group.