Author: KateWatt

The Community Grants Fund (CGF) is a small grants scheme provided by the City of Edinburgh Council. Small grants of up to £5,000 can be awarded to constituted groups for local community activity. Grants can be applied for throughout the year. The forms are available on the CEC website and examples of applications can be seen on the area details on Community Grants Fund webpage Look at Pentland for Ratho groups and Almond for Ratho Station, Newbridge and Gogar groups.  https://www.edinburghpartnership.scot/get-involved

Please note that application forms for funding for organisations in Pentlands are available on this link and the Almond forms are available on the Almond page.

The City Council is preparing a new Local Development Plan for Edinburgh called City Plan 2030. This plan will set out how it is proposed to develop the city sustainably over the next ten years.  It includes proposals for the siting of new housing development areas.

The first engagement stage ‘Choices for City Plan 2030’ took place between January and April 2020, including a consultation event in Ratho Community Centre.  They received over 1800 responses to the consultation from organisations, community groups and members of the public in the city.  A report on the responses to Choices for City Plan 2030 will now be considered by Planning Committee on 12 August 2020. You can view the committee report, appendixes and full consultation responses on the website. 

A new Development Plan Scheme which sets out the timetable for the next stage of the plan process and how you can get involved will also be presented to the committee. 

You can keep up to date with the City Plan Project by 

• subscribing to their blog
• following them on twitter at @planningedin
• joining in the conversation by using the #cityplan2030 hashtag.

The City of Edinburgh Council recently made changes to the junction at the A8, rendering this junction much more dangerous for car drivers. This junction is a major access for residents travelling by car via the north and west of the city and the Airport and Ingliston Park & Ride. The Community Council continues to lobby for these changes to be reversed. The CEC published a road safety audit, (view it here), The problems identified have become all too frequent with the implementation of the changes.

The Community Council was asked by the City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) to find out exactly what residents felt necessary in relation our supported bus service. We asked residents on social media, by email and personal contact with groups for their views. Unsurprisingly there was a large response wanting a direct service to the city centre, such as we previously had. A copy of the report is available here. This has been forwarded to the appropriate officer in CEC along with the comments received from residents.

We held a public meeting about parking and traffic issues in Ratho Village in September 2018.  A number of common issues were highlighted and considered later by officers from our South West Locality Office.   As a result actions are proposed to alleviate some of these problems in the short to medium term.  The summary of the meeting and solutions can be accessed here.

At the present time the City of Edinburgh Council is negotiating with some of the landowners for parcels of land in order to carry out the planned upgrade of the junction.  It is intended to include a right filter to turn up Dalmahoy Road, a right filter to enter Dalmahoy Country Club and a pedestrian crossing all controlled by 4 way traffic signals, along with realigning pavements and re-siting bus stops.  You can view pdf copy of the plan from this link Dalmahoy Plan.

 

Earlier this year Edinburgh Airport launched its new flight tracking and reporting system https://noiselab.casper.aero/edi/#page=live_flighttracking where members of the public can track flights within Edinburgh Airport airspace, with data on altitude, origin/destination airport, and flight identification. This system allows residents to review specific aircraft that created a noise concern and lodge a complaint to the Airport Noise Office directly from Flight Tracker.   Flight operations have a 5-10 minute delay.

They have also set up Edinburgh Airport Noise Advisory Board (EANAB) with representatives of Community Councils in the area to represent the concerns of local communities who are affected by aircraft noise associated with operations around Edinburgh Airport (EAL).  EANAB will ensure such concerns are understood and will report back to local communities on actions intended to improve the situation for those affected, with the ultimate aim of reducing the impact of noise on the local community.   Ratho & District is represented on the Board and to report concerns with aircraft noise can be contacted here.

Ratho Medical Centre Patient Participation Group are holding an Open Meeting on Wednesday 25th April at 7pm in Ratho Community Centre. The Guest Speakers will be Gillian Smith from Queensferry Care and Hazel Dowling, Ratho Medical Practice Manager.