The Independent Republic of the Canongate

My street the houses in the middle have 9 council flats and are to be demolished by developers, currently lying empty!

I know it is probably obscure for most of you but I want to tell you about another blog - the Independent Republic of the Canongate.

The Canongate is the bottom end of the Royal Mile of Edinburgh and it is where I live. Engels referred to it in The Conditions of the the English Working Class (sic) see here

It is also the same street the Scottish Parliament is on. However it has great working class roots and still the majority of it's inhabitants are still working class despite the right to buy now causing most of the council housing to be left to developers, homes of multiple occupancy and holiday flats.

Developers nearly four years ago called Mountgrange (Caltongate) Plc decided at the council's invitation that the Canongate was not "fit for purpose" and needed developed, they put in a Masterplan application to demolish council housing, an old Victorian school, the bus garage, art centre and the Old Sailor's Ark (a drop in centre for chaotic homeless people).............and build luxury apartments, a 5 star hotel, conference centre, a new civic square and luxury office apartments. The locals, conservationists and a mixture of all types have been fighting the developers and council ever since.

Their consultation was a farce, their behaviour has been a scandal and they have at every hurdle managed to convince the stupid councillors and planners that Edinburgh must have this development - smack bang wallop inside a World Heritage Site.

They did not expect the hositility they got from the community and conservation groups - some of us set up Save Our Old Town in order to fight back this nasty development and try and influence it with better planning ideas. It has been an almost daily struggle, with little resources but we are getting there even if it has taken us 4 years!!!!

We are not against developing the area and have done an alternative stratey including building council homes, an art centre, market place, green space, play space - even allotments and composting. But nothing has been taken into consideration.

All the planning applications have gone through and then.....................the credit crunch!!! Everything appears to have stopped! We have complained to UNESCO and the European Union as well as the Standards Commission and the Scottish Government about the whole process from the land sales to the failing to protect the integrity of the Old Town to lack of community consultation. No avail from the latter two but UNESCO are not coming with a delegation in November 2008 and the EU are looking into our claims that there might have been dodgy off market dealings.

Now the architects involved in Caltongate - Allan Murray, Robert Murphy and Malcolm Fraser are planning an anti- hertitage conference when UNESCO are coming - they want the right to build whatever they want and the right to be greedy - to hell with public opinion and the needs of the community.

Anyway just wanted to tell you about our campaign and the blog www.Independentrepublicofthe canongate.blogspot.com

How do communities plan their own communities or atleast not be at the beck and call of evil developers?

Deleted Without Being Read

There is no doubt lots of serious stuff going on in the news, but I've just got back from me hols, so commenting on world-shaking events will just have to wait. Among the 200+ emails awaiting my attention was this little classic:

Your message

To: Jennette Arnold
Subject: Loud announcements from Hackney railway stations
Sent: Mon, 5 May 2008 05:31:17 +0100

was deleted without being read on Sat, 9 Aug 2008 08:56:40 +0100

Now, I wouldn't expect the average Stroppyblog reader to be hugely interested in the sleep deprivation caused to me and my neighbours by loud announcements from our local railway station, but I thought you might be interested - in a not-very-impressed sort of way - with a New Labour GLA member's commitment to representing her constituents. Yes, for those of you wondering who Jenette Arnold (pictured) actually is, she is GLA member for North East London, which includes Hackney.

What do you do if someone emails you about a quality-of-life issue that obviously matters to several people whom it is your job to speak up for and represent? Er ... Ignore it for three months, then delete it without reading it.

And Labour wonders why its base in working-class communities is shrinking to virtually nothing? (OK, something to do with generalised attacks on the working class, privatisation, cutting public sector pay, unpopular wars, sucking up to the rich, failing to protect us from the credit crunch etc, but you get my point ...)

A friend and comrade has died

Today in Edinburgh up Corstorphine Hill at a woodland funeral , Kenny Skeel was laid to rest. On Sunday last week in Edinburgh we lost a friend, neighbour and activist. He was one of my neighbours in the Canongate where we are campaigning against developers Mountgrange. Kenny was an artist and an artisan - he painted beautiful pictures and murals for a living but as an activist he was always painting banners, attending campaign awareness raising events and so on. He even completed a painting he was doing for the Save Our Old Town campaign while he was in hospital in the last few days of his spectacular life. He was one of the founders and stalwarts of the historic vigil for a Scottish Parliament that set up camp on Calton Hill for five years between 1992 and 1997. This helped paved the way for the creation of a Scottish Parliament, keeping the issue in the forefront of Scots' minds 365 days a year. He was a gem, a real human being, the greatest story teller I have ever known. The poster you can see is one of Kenny Skeel's pieces of art work - a poste r he did for the Declaration of Calton Hill in October 2004.

This notice appeared in the Herald last week. My thoughts are with his partner Nell.

SKEEL — KEN. Peacefully, at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, on Sunday, 18th May, 2008, Ken Skeel, aged 61, brilliant artist, dancer, story teller and passionate campaigner for Truth and Justice in the world. Dearly loved and loving partner of Nell, uncle of Gale, friend and great inspiration to many. Funeral at Corstorphine Hill Cemetery, Edinburgh, on Monday, 26th May, at 2.30pm, to which all friends are respectfully invited. Donations in lieu of flowers to ‘SOOT’ (Save Our Old Town), at http://www.eh8.org.uk/ or Plant a Tree.

Kenny travelled the world, he especially loved Afghanistan and India. He was a fighter against injustice, the war, for better communities and for Scotland's right to self determination.

“This is a green world, with animals comparatively few and small, and all dependent on the leaves. By leaves we live. Some people have strange ideas that they live by money. They think energy is generated by the circulation of coins. Whereas the world is mainly a vast leaf colony, growing on and forming a leafy soil, not a mere mineral mass: and we live not by the jingling of our coins, but by the fullness of our harvests.” - Patrick Geddes

The Horror of Caltongate

On Wednesday 6th February Edinburgh Council finally showed its lack of imagination and that they really were just Tories. £300 million and our homes and heritage were flung out the window. If you have never been to Edinburgh before then advice you come. Location, Location voted it the best place in Britain to live and it was voted the 10th best city in the world to visit and that isn't just because I live there - though I add to the ambience.

I am from Edinburgh and my family (on my grandma's side) came here originally from Ireland (on her father's side) and on her mother's side we were tinkers/travellers/gypsies.

Edinburgh is a great place to live and I am lucky because I live in a council house there - one of the last. There are 9 council houses just down from me built by the great visionary Ebenezer Macrae, he was the City Architect in the 20s, 30s and 40s. My grandma and granda's house when I was born was a Macrae tenement in Morrison Street at Haymarket. We are city folks. Well the cooncil and the developers reckon that the tatty tenements are in the way of the biggest development of the Old Town since the 12th Century and they must go to create a fancy 5 star hotel and conference centre. They are also demolishing the Old Sailor's Ark and the Canongate Venture, old school and technical college. They have also sold of our "common good land" for a song, it doesn't belong to them it belongs to the people of Edinburgh.

The above picture is Ernie, he's nearly 80 - he is my neighbour who is to be evicted out of his house because it is in the way for a 5 star hotel. Ernie is the Old Town's old coal man when we all used coal fires. Lily is one of my neighbour's too - her mum Sally is one of the main campaigners.

The councillors were open that they could not turn down £300 million worth of development and if our neighbour's homes had to go then fair enough and if Edinburgh went on UNESCOs "At danger" risk of loosing its heritage it was a gamble worth taking. We are not against the area being developed - it is an old gas works/bus depot and old unused market buildings but not at the cost of perfectly good buildings that are in use. the development is nasty!!

So we will fight on and have to use the bourgeois courts, EU etc - off course the Scottish Ministers have to agree to it so it might not get past that hurdle. So watch this space
http://www.independentrepublicofthecanongate.blogspot.com/ or http://www.eh8.org.uk/

I am screaming on the inside and the outside

This is how I feel today!! Read our blog on http://www.independentrepublicofthecanongate.blogspot.com.

I hate the sham of democracy we have and I hate all Edinburgh's councillors except Steve Burgess (green) Cllr Keir (SNP) and David Beckett (SNP)who fought gallantly for the people. I will post more tomorrow.

My neighbours and I were like fishwives in the Chambers every sweary word that could be said was said, every abusive comment (except sexist, racist and homophobic ones of course) was said!!!!!!!! We were very continental with our emotions. The sky was blue!!!!!!!!!!!

Tell you more tomorrow...........all I have to say is that the councillors were NUMPTIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Scotland's Hidden Cultural Heritage - The Common Good

Don't know what the equivalent is in England and Wales but in Scotland we have the Common Good, Common Good land and property is land and property given to the people by rich people, lords, ladies, won inn battle, left in wills or just there for the people. The word Market, Links, Green is usually a key to it. Effectively it is land and property owned by the people and shouls be stewarded by local authorities to ensure it is used effectively.

Unfortunately it isn't - there is a petition here into the Scottish Parliament about its stewardship, some people including myself are calling for better legislation to protect our common wealth.

What is the equivalent in Englandshire and Wales?

Andy Wightman has written lots about it in Scotland in a book called Who Owns Scotland here

We are having a Common Good day on Saturday 26th January at the Pearce Institute here - which looks interesting.

Independent Republic of the Canongate

The Save Our Old Town (SOOT) campaign in Edinburgh has started a blog. We have 26 days before the Edinburgh Councillors decide whether to allow the demolitions oh homes and listed buildings in Edinburgh's Canongate (where I live-it's the same street as the Scottish Parliament). 9 of the 17 homes they want to demolish are council houses.

So check out our blog. Save Our Old Town is a great campaign and hopefully we will win!

http://independentrepublicofthecanongate.blogspot.com/

Cat xx

www.eh8.org.uk

Resident Inspectors?

My local council (Hackney) is asking residents to volunteer to be 'resident inspectors', which "sits alongside the programme of mystery shoppers that we already have up and running" and whose role is "to examine an area of our service and find out what works well and what could be done better". The Council has commissioned a consultancy, Campbell Tickell, to get the project off the ground.

I believe strongly that the left should take a lot more interest in the politics of working-class communities, and am pretty actively involved myself. From this point of view, I have a few concerns about the 'resident inspectors' proposal and would welcome views.

1. How can we be sure that a 'resident inspector' actually represents the views of the community in which they live? If residents simply volunteer, rather than being elected by their Tenants' & Residents' Assocation (TRA), and if they report only to the Council not to the TRA, then what is to stop them putting forward views that are only their own and may actually contradict those of their neighbours?

2. My suspicions are always aroused when there is a consultancy firm involved. There is a record of these costing the Council a lot of money and ending up telling the Council what the TRA could have told them for nothing all along!

3. Although the Council's blurb states that they see resident inspectors as "people who work collaboratively with our staff", if I were a trade unionist in Hackney Council, I would have two big worries - firstly, that 'resident inspectors' might be used to spy on Council staff; and secondly, that this inspection work should be done by paid Council staff, and as such, 'resident inspectors' might be a means by which the Council is getting work done for free by well-meaning volunteers at the expense of (potential) Council jobs.