Southside Association report to the CC May 2019

The Southside Association would like to bring a number of issues to the attention of the Community Council for their information, support and action.

Environmental concerns

The SA shares the CC's concerns about the state of our streets, and would appreciate the support of the CC in a number of areas.

Fly Posting

Our area is blighted by illegal fly posting, particularly on street furniture such as lamp posts, utility boxes and phone boxes. It is quite clear in legislation that such fly posting is against the law, but the City Council seems unwilling to take any action to curb its proliferation. Last year the SA led a deputation to the City Council's Transport and Environment Committee which was well received and as a result the contract for the Festival Fringe advertising has been greatly improved, with much tougher targets for street cleanliness and removal of graffiti and fly posting. This, however, only applies to the Festival period in the summer, and successful implementation will depend on the streets being clean beforehand. It will not be possible to hold the contract operator, Out of Hand, to a high standard if the streets are in a mess before they take over.

Much of the fly posting is advertising events in venues around the city. There used to be a scheme whereby venues could lose their licence for public entertainment if fly posting were found with their name on it, but this scheme has fallen into abeyance as the City Council was no longer willing to fund it. The SA would like this scheme resurrected, but in a self financing way - there should be no cost to the City Council, (ultimately the Council Tax payers), in administering this scheme, the cost should fall on the licensed venues. The cost of the license should include a levy to administer this scheme. The City Council should also take action against organisations allowing their events to be published by fly posting. A few high profile prosecutions would soon deter the majority of offenders. The SA would appreciate help from the CC in encouraging the City Council to be more pro-active.

Examples of fly posting recently taken down by the SA are shown below. (click on a picture to see the bigger version.)

General Clean-up

The SA has been promised a general clean-up of at least the main corridor through the Southside. A pilot of the clean-up has taken place in St Patrick Square. In the view of the SA the results of this clean-up are far from satisfactory. Stickers may have been removed from lamp posts, but there is still a residue of the glue to which dirt has stuck leaving a lot of black sticky blotches. In some cases adhesive tape has not been removed, and in others paint has been pulled off with the stickers. The result fails to give the impression of a well cared for area. Members of the CC are invited to go and look for themselves and see what they think. We could urge the City Council to do a better job, using some solvent if necessary, and applying paint which will deter the sticker stickers.

Bins

The SA has heard that commercial food waste and glass recycling bins will no longer be allowed to reside permanently on the pavement after 30th September 2019. Businesses will be allowed to put them out for emptying in specific time slots, but outwith those times they must be housed within their premises. This is great news, and the SA hopes the CC will be vigilant in noting how well the rules are kept.

Advertising trailers, Holyrood Park Road

There have been a couple of advertising trailers parked on Holyrood Park Road recently, both advertising "student storage". After much protesting by Dr James Gilmour, a local resident, one of these has been removed, but the City Council seems unwilling to get these towed away, despite the fact that they are parked on a yellow line, and causing an obstruction to the flow of traffic. A car parked in this way would be ticketed and towed away, but because these are trailers, the wardens don't seem to think they can act, despite the fact that the law clearly says they can. Please can the CC write to the appropriate officer of the City Council asking for action to be taken here.

Philip McDowell
May 2019