The Edinburgh Minute ⏰ Monday 24 June 2024
Elm Row cycle lane redesign, £71m upgrade for Moredun multis, election hustings tonight + tributes to Till's Bookshop owner
🌤️ Good morning Edinburgh. Normal service resumes this week: free, ad-free and landing in your inbox at 7am daily. Here’s Monday’s Edinburgh Minute.
📚 Tributes are being paid to Till’s Bookshop owner Rick Till, who has died aged 71. - Cara Blackhall, Edinburgh Live.
🗳️ Hyperlocal paper, The Spurtle, hosts its election hustings this evening. - All the details are here.
🚈 ScotRail train drivers have threatened to ballot for fresh industrial action unless a pay offer is improved, reports Alastair Dalton in The Scotsman this morning.
🖼️ Also in today’s Scotsman, a 1937 oil painting by L.S. Lowry has fetched nearly £200,000 at auction. - George Mair, The Scotsman.
🍽️ School meals booked using an online cashless payment system keep disappearing, according to the parents at Davidson’s Mains primary. - Ian Swanson, Evening News.
🌈 The Evening News has a video and The Edinburgh Reporter has a photo gallery from Saturday’s Pride events. BBC Scotland News also has a video, speaking to attendees.
⮑ Organisers said 42,500 people attended.
🇺🇦 “In a room on the top floor of Edinburgh University’s Business School, a group of Ukrainian women are talking about the legacy of trauma their country will be left with once the war is over.” - Dani Garavelli went to meet them for The Herald.
🚏 Cycle lanes at Elm Row are to be redesigned so people don’t have to cross them to reach the bus stop. - Ian Swanson, Evening News.
📆 It’s a busy week of council meetings:
Monday: Licensing Board, Lothian Valuation Joint Board & Pensions Audit Sub-Committee.
Tuesday: Finance and Resources Committee, including plans for whole house retrofit upgrades of the six Moredun multi-storey blocks (545 homes). The estimated cost of the job is £71m across up to 48 months of construction.
Wednesday: Planning Committee & Pensions Committee.
Thursday: Review of Scheme for Community Councils and their Boundaries & the monthly Full Council meeting which includes a Friendship Agreement with the city of Kaohsiung in Taiwan, Traffic Regulation Orders, the City Plan 2030 and a long list of motions from councillors.
⮑ On the Taiwan ‘friendship agreement’, John McLellan uses his Evening News opinion column to write: “The Chinese Consul General is taking a keen interest in the proposal, and I’m told has warned of dire consequences should it be voted through.”Last week’s transport and environment committee voted to investigate new ways to combat dog fouling, including stencilled messages on pavements. - Ian Swanson, Evening News.
🎨 Edinburgh-based writer and designer Sarah Wood González is hosting an Edinburgh Interiors Summer Soirée on Wednesday between 6.30pm and 8.30pm. Sarah says: “It’s free and anyone can come - a place to meet other people interested in design, interiors, renovations and creative pursuits!” - You can find out more and RSVP here.
🛝 This week’s Gayle’s Guide of family-friendly things to do in Edinburgh includes a free buggy-walk in the Meadows, Bookbug sessions, crafty workshops and a kids’ ceilidh.
Some updates from last week while I took a couple of days off:
🇵🇸 Pupils and parents at James Gillespie's High School staged walkout on Thursday calling for a ceasefire in Palestine. - Kris Gourlay, Edinburgh Live.
🎭 After surviving a funding crisis, the Edinburgh Deaf Festival is returning for its third year with a packed programme of events. - Robert Armour, Third Force News.
🏢 Plans have been submitted to extend the Shrubhill House student accommodation just off Leith Walk. - Katie Williams, Edinburgh Live.
💰 Edinburgh-based AI legal assistant platform Wordsmith has raised $5 million (around £3.94m), with investors including Skyscanner founder Gareth Williams. - Scottish Legal News.
⮑ The company wrote about the investment on their website.
⮑ Paul Sawyers of TechCrunch published his own analysis, saying:
“That such a young Scottish startup has secured the backing of two VC firms that have collectively invested in the likes of Facebook, Slack, Sonos, Airbnb, Stripe and Snap speaks not only to Wordsmith’s early promise, but also the founders’ pedigrees.”
🥖 Breadshare Bakery on Seafield Road has been put on the market at £275,000 after lying empty for more than two years. - Cara Blackhall, Edinburgh Live.
📸 Local photographer Tom Duffin has shared some incredible images from the weekend’s ‘Strawberry Moon’.
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📌 “My neighbour Stanley Dunlop, who has died aged 92, was the life and soul of Friends of Starbank Park, a charity that helps to look after the park in the north of Edinburgh.” - Obituary by Laura Vida in The Guardian.
📌 “After a short break, episode 4 of the Keeping Edinburgh podcast dropped a couple of weeks ago. This latest episode offers a glimpse behind the scenes of the amazing Fresh Start, and the work of Edinburgh Community Food and its partners, including The Ripple project. The response to the podcast - yet again - has been wonderful and we just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has taken the time to listen so far, and discover more about the amazing contributions of organisations and people helping others across Edinburgh’s communities.” - Thanks to podcast co-producer Cleo for sharing this.
📌 “To celebrate 10 years of Smart Works Scotland, Smart Works are hosting 'A midsummer's evening of fashion and confidence with John Lewis & Partners' on the 26th of June, 17.30-19.30. We will be joined by transformational life coach Hannah Buchan, personal stylist Laura Russell, John Lewis stylists and Bobbi Brown make-up artist Aimee Morrison. Come along to do some shopping, meet like-minded fashion-enthusiasts and to celebrate 10 years of Smart Works Scotland empowering women to get the job and transform their lives.” - Thanks to Smart Works Scotland for sharing this link.
📌 “Hi there, my name is Orin Annand, I am hosting a showcase event for my graduate collection in Edinburgh at Cabaret Voltaire on Thursday the 27th of June, this will be through a showcase event with performances which raise awareness on the climate crisis and environmental and social issues caused by the climate crisis, with the majority of the team both within the show and behind the scenes being diverse members of the LGBTQ+ community.” - Orin Annand, Creative Director/Fashion Designer, ODA Fashion Showcase.
📌 “Wed 26 Jun (17:30-20:00) at The Melting Pot. As AI is developed and AI-powered tools become more promising and widely available, there's a temptation to assume this technology is a definitive answer to most of our troubles. Part of The Melting Pot's AI & Social Innovation Series, "Techno-solutionism in AI" is an event designed to discover how to overcome barriers and make AI better for all.” - Thanks to The Melting Pot for sharing this.
📌 “You are warmly invited to the opening launch of my exhibition on June 24th from 6 PM to 8 PM, featuring a speech and a performance by Castle Chorus. The exhibition visually documents my transformative journey following the unexpected diagnosis of a stage two astrocytoma brain tumor in the spring of 2022. Through a series of artworks combining figurative yet abstract illustrations and detailed montages, I aim to share the emotional and factual layers of my experience.” - Pirko Edes, Illustrator, Beyond My Forehead, a Star – Astrocytoma Diary Exhibition, Out of The Blue Drill Hall.
📮 Something missing? Share your local news and events here.
📈 The most-visited links from the last newsletter:
✍️ “The tragic life and death of 'Organic Jim', a true Edinburgh eccentric.”
🚗 Locals in Trinity trying to get an exemption to the pavement parking ban.
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