Greener Leith – August update

Greener Leith will soon have some new banners on Leith Walk!

A couple of years ago Greener Leith was lucky enough to persuade the Council to let us have three banners on Leith Walk lamp posts during the tram works. Now that sadly the tram is not coming to Leith, the Council is replacing them with new images and we were invited again to submit some artwork. We too thought it was time for a makeover too and asked Paola, our long-standing local graphic designer, to come up with a new banner. We have just received this new design which we really like. This kind of free advertising is really important to us, particularly when trying to organise this Autumn’s park clean ups, for which we will need the help of some 30-40 volunteers to remove litter from Leith’s main green spaces, Leith Links, Pilrig and Victoria Park.

Greener Leith’s efforts to build Scotland’s first urban community-owned wind turbine at Seafield continue unabated. The profits of the electricity that such a wind turbine would generate would be used for the benefit of the communities of Portobello, Leith and Craigentinny, some 79,000 people in total. Together with our partners, PEDAL/Porty, a like-minded organisation in Portobello, we are very busy fundraising for some £120K to get a feasibility study underway. The main aim of this study is to establish whether there is enough wind on the site for a wind turbine to be productive. We are also required to carry out a bird survey, an ecological survey, a noise report and a visual impact report. Not forgetting the people in the area, we are also planning to consult with as many people as we can in Portobello, Craigentinny and Leith to get their views on the prospect of a wind turbine. Hopefully we will know by the end of the month whether the wind-turbine project will go ahead.