Pilton Sucks dotCom

Well Friends and readers, your newly elected Labour-oops sorry community councils will if they have not already met, be meeting shortly. This will be an opportunity for those with an independent mind to have their say. It may well be that they are swamped by the labour toadies, who will try and put a brave front on view as the party machine goes into freefall.

PiltonSucks.com is a little wary of these councils but like everybody else we have no choice in the matter - so much for democracy. But we will put a brave face on it and trust that they do not decend into a farce with people becoming fed up, if they become what we suspect which is another talking shop with the labour toadies running the show. 

We have seen the make up of the councils and there are some good people on them, who will not be bullied by the clingons of the labour party.

Well lets hope they suceed and make a real difference to a community which has ground to a halt in terms of regeneration.

 

Friends and readers. By now the lucky punters who put their names forward for the community council will know their fate. It will be breath held to see if we are to have an election in any of the Greater Pilton wards. If not then it is business as usual, with the suporters of the ruling party taking prominence.

We hope that the community councillors have minds of their own and do not end up as talking shops for an ever decreasing Labour Party.  As they try to shore up their support in the constiuency what better opportunity than to try and dominate the community councils. It would be no suprise for instance to see friends and family of our foreign hoilday queen Elizabeth Maginnnis dominate that community council, somethings just never change.

By now Friends and readers you will have received notification of the soon to be Community Councils.  You may also know that your nominations have to be in by the 6th March. This of course you could argue is democracy in action, but is it just a change of name or a re-hash of tried and failed policies of yesteryear.

We at PiltonSucks.com have to be excused if we sound a little sceptical, but the Wester Hailes experience leaves us a little cold and uneasy about the whole exercise. 

We need to have as many people as possible involved in real decision making not just be paid lip service to. So we offer another idea, we would like to see open community meetings at least once a month to discuss and debate the issues that really concern the residents of Greater Pilton.

We have been bludgened into submission by the strength and tactics of the party machines who have in effect undermined and stiffled any kind of democratic forum. This of course they will deny but the people on the ground know the truth.

Having sucessfully stiffled any kind of democratic debate and therefore resistance to the changes they wish to impose, we are now told community planning is the answer to all of the problems facing the community and the new kid on the block.

This of course is nonsense and by employing the spoiling tactics they have in fact called game set and match on democratic debate. No longer will sense play any role in this just party politics with the community as the ball to be kicked and eventually burst. It may well be that at the next local elections some of our rulers wil take the money and run. leaving the mess behind for someone else to clean up.

So beware of Greeks bearing gifts or the Trojan Horse if you like, possibly even white elephant.  The dark cloud of community planning approaches take heed all ye that enter there.

 

Friends and readers a new dawn is approaching us with a new purpose built community centre in the grounds of royston school. Sounds good does it not but let us dig a little deeper and what is revealed is not quite so exiciting and dynamic.

Some time ago a survey went out into the community asking them about their preferences regarding a new centre. A clear majority of surveys returned suggested a demolition and rebuild on the same site in pilton drive north. So far so good ah but wait on this did not happen what the residents were first offered by our rulers was a community wing used mainly for meeting places for outside organisations thereby geting rid of the old centre and all its baggage and replacing it with something that would exclude the community.

It is worth mentioning that public money had been used for a feisability study, pilton sucks believes it to have been around 9000 pounds to tell the community what it already knew.Two scale models were also produced and at a public meeting option b was chosen.

Somewhere along the line major changes were made without any consultation with the community and the end product as mentioned was a community wing. So a debate started which at times became quite heated as emotions ran quite high,but instead of looking to our rulers to explain themselves as to why they were selling us out a depression fell across the community feeling once again they had been let down.

But fear not after a long and somewhat heated debate the community has its new centre complete with a sports hall of comparable size, all’s well that ends well - not quite.

It would now seem, according to one source that after being promised a new centre, once again the community is about to let down again because we are now told that there is a million pound shortfall. This is completely unaceptable - promises were made they must be kept! Our local rulers seem to be to pre-occupied with forelock tugging to the land speculators of the waterfront development, they seem to have forgotten that it is the people who put them there, it is the people who will remove them.

The desperation to grab the land on which the community centre stands and sell it to their developer friends is reaching fever pitch.  What even more shoe box like houses to be built surely not but it would seem thats what will happen, as our rulers are tucked up in bed even more tightly with the speculators than before, so the community is really just an irritant getting in the way of progress

Progress my friends! We at PiltonSucks.com think not.

We have a suggestion to make and the elections are next year. Why not punish our rulers at the ballot box they will take it for granted at being re-elected as one party member let slip to us. This is safe labour territory we will walk in. Oh will they be complacent indeed.

We at PiltonSucks.com have followed events in greater Pilton for some considerable time and in particular our attention has been attracted to an activist who has been suggesting it is time for a community candidate to step forward and plug the gap. We suggest this person stands and puts back some dignity into a community which has had its self-respect and dignity slowly stripped away over the years.

Be in no doubt readers, the community of greater Pilton needs political change as a matter of urgency to save what is left of the community’s heart and soul.  So act now be ready to take up the baton and run with it.  It is your community it is not the property of some past its sell by date political party, but the living breathing embodiment of its residents. 

The proposed new centre is an opportunity to grab the initiative and let our rulers know that it is the residents of Royston Wardieburn who will demand nothing less than a community centre for all the residents and encourage everyone all over the community to use and support it. This new centre is long overdue, do not let our rulers sell us short.

Friends of PiltonSucks.com and fellow readers we in greater Pilton are about to enter into an elaborate hoax, namely, community councils. It is important that residents understand, as they did in the stock transfer debate and subscequent vote that anything that our rulers think is the best thing since sliced bread are merely being led up the proverbial garden path.

Democracy is not in the gift of our great and visionary leaders who promise you mana from heaven only to find that you have been eating stale bread all along.

Community councils are being forced upon us in someone elses vision of democracy, you will have less say as the desicions are moved further away from you and become more centralised. One reader here wrote that the decisions in this community are taken by a handful of people.

Let me enlighten you there are almost certainly only three people who meet privately and take the important decisions in this community Ms. Hutchison, who has commented here guessed two of them there is one other a lady by the name of Christine Docherty, unelected to anything employed to serve the people of greater Pilton, however certainly does anything but that.

If there were to be true democracy in these community councils we the people who are after all the real power could call these power mad people to account.  But will we be able to do that, of course not, don’t be so silly.  It will only be a talking shop designed to hem you in and stiffle ideas leaving Ms Docherty Ms Pickering and Ms McGuinness and their hangers-on to take the real decisions.  Those three, make the decisions and their hangers-on hand them down. So tell me friends and readers, where are your community councils in all this activity, very simply, nowhere.  Just a group of well meaning people kidding themselves on that they are movers and shakers and shapeing community policy.  Nothing could be further from the truth. 

Until you rid yourselves of the parasites feeding off this community, and you know who they are, then you will just be fed scrapes from the masters table beggars at the feast.

 

Beware North Edinburgh Community Councils are coming in our direction and coming fast.

PiltonSucks.com asks the question how does this make our rulers more accountable with yet another tier of kind on democracy designed, if you care to examine it as we at PiltonSucks.com have, to in fact detach further from the people any kind of real accountability by placing another layer of so called community representation in the way of anything substantial happening thereby allowing our rulers to preach about democracy but taking the real self interest decisions behind closed doors.

Watch your letter boxes closely.