The Wester Hailes Community Trust is pleased to announce the publication of the Wester Hailes Local Place Plan.
After months of consultation with local people, groups, organisations and partners culminating in draft proposals being presented at community events in August the Local Place Plan has been completed and published.
Local Place Plans offer communities the opportunity to develop proposals for their local area, expressing their aspirations and ambitions for future change. They were introduced by the Planning (Scotland) Act 2019, which contains a new right for communities to produce their own plans as part of the new Scottish planning system. Local Place Plans contain the community’s proposals for the development and use of land, and provide a new opportunity for communities to feed into the planning system with ideas and proposals.
The place was created by Urban Pioneers. You can download a copy form their website here.
Information on the Plan:
The Wester Hailes Local Place Plan was shaped through extensive community and stakeholder engagement outlining how the community would like to see any development or use of land (spatial proposals) in Wester Hailes in the future. In addition, non-spatial proposals have been identified to tackle particular issues that would not be addressed through the spatial proposals alone.
With the proposed concept of the 20-Minute Neighbourhood to be embedded within the Fourth National Planning Framework (NPF4) the Wester Hailes Local Place Plan has used the 20-Minute Neighbourhood features as the basis for the site appraisal and the resulting proposals.
Based on the site appraisal and engagement the Local Place Plan has outlined a vision, core values and key projects which are to be undertaken and developed in Wester Hailes for the coming years. The key projects (36!) including Strategies/ Long-term Approach Overall and Neighbourhood Physical Improvements, Community Hubs, Community Facilities and Community Building. Outline proposals, relevant Community and External Stakeholders, Potential Lead, Timescale and Next Steps have been defined for each project.
The Key Projects, broken down into categories, are:
- Strategies/Long-term Approaches
- Adult Engagement Strategy
- Youth Engagement Strategy
- CEC Housing Management Strategy
- Open and Greenspace Management Strategy
- Arts and Culture Strategy
- Food Strategy
- Health and Wellbeing Strategy
- Learning Strategy
- Work and Local Economy Strategy
- Ageing in Place
- Overall Physical Improvements
- Path Routes
- Neighbourhood Connection Improvements
- Canal Improvements
- Greenspace Improvements
- Housing
- Local Centre
- WHEC/Wester Hailes High School
- Canal Footbridge
- Re-Parking
- Neighbourhood Physical Improvements – broken down into each sub-neighbourhood and differing density blocks
- Community Hubs
- Co-ordinated Management of Community Facilities and Services
- Clovenstone Amateur Boxing Club
- Calders Community Hub
- Central Community Hub – Canal Site
- Greenway Community Hub
- WHALE Arts
- Community Facilities and Services
- Seating
- Greenspace Community Factoring Service
- Open Access Indoor Spaces
- Open Access Outdoor Spaces
- Sports/Activity Pitches and Spaces
- Virtual Community Hub and Notice Boards
- Community Building
- Capacity Building of Wester Hailes Community Trust
- Re-establish Community Council
Speaking of the release of the Plan the Wester Hailes Community Trust gave the following statement:
With the Local Place Plan (commissioned by Wester Hailes Community Trust) completed, we would like to say ‘Thank you’ to all the people who have taken the time to speak to the Local Place Plan Team, came along to meetings, workshops, exhibitions and events, being part of the steering group, contributed with their invaluable local knowledge. All of you made the Local Place Plan happen!
We are also saying ‘Thank you and good bye’ to our design team Marion Preez, UrbanPioneers Landscape Architect, and Matt McKenna, Dress for the Weather. In saying this we wish to fully recognise the extensive and inclusive community consultation work that they have carried out, culminating in an excellent and comprehensive final report that will greatly assist us when sharing the Community’s exciting proposals with further interested local residents and potential funders alike. This is especially appreciated bearing in mind that many of these earlier activities were successfully completed under Lockdown conditions.
To continue with the Local Place Plan work, and taking the first steps towards implementing some of the outlined projects, the Wester Hailes Community Trust have appointed Hayley Adam as a Development Officer for the next 4 months. Some of you might have met Hayley already as she was part of helping at the Local Place Plan engagement events.
In order to register the Local Place Plan with the City of Edinburgh Council, it is a legal requirement to notify the adjacent Community Councils and local Councillors with a 28 days notification period for their comments. This has now been undertaken. The Trust are anticipating the submission to the City of Edinburgh Council at the end of October.
Prior to the year 2000, when the people of Wester Hailes were asked what project we would vote for to mark the Millenium, we opted for the canal to be reopened between Hailesland and Sighthill. This was due to the publicity, at the time, assuring us that we would have canal-side cafes with play areas for the children, boating areas with pedalos and canoes for hire, and the canal area turned into an asset for the residents and visitors. What we actually got was a cycle path, which some of our elderly residents refuse to walk on, due to the speed and carelessness of many of the cycling commuters who use it as their main route to and from work, and seem to have claimed it as their own private roadway. Last summer, I watched as four young boys with fishing nets, trying to catch Tadpoles, were subjected to foul mouthed abuse from a cyclist because he had to slow down to pass them. So, now we have plans for more pie in the sky schemes, that look great on paper, that, no doubt, cost a few thousand pounds to produce, and will likely never be financed as such schemes always suffer from spiraling costs from the original estimate, so much so, that it will be scrapped like so many other good ideas.