Pilton Sucks dotCom

Friends and Readers all is quite as we await the new communtiy charge books which should be droping on our door steps very shortly.  The glee on the faces of the Labour aristocracy, the deafening silence of delight, the massive slaps of self congratulations at their briilance at being able as they tell us to keep the increase to a minimum, we should not vote for them it only encourages them.

So as the Water of Leith slowly flows on and on and on….. so does the noble rulers of the city confident in the fact that whatever they do they can con the plebs into believing it is for their own good, but they just do not realise it.

Should not our noble rulers come out of their gilded palace come into the communities and explain to the punters exactly what it is that we do not understand.  Give us your words of wisdom dazzle us with your intellects, and give us plebs some of your very important time in an attempt to make us understand what is good for us and how we will all be better off in the long run.

We at PiltonSucks.com are convinced that the people would sit open mouthed in anticipation of what was to come. Unfortunatly we are giving our rulers a little to much credit, it is far more likely that you will be ignored and ridiculed in your efforts to get any kind of sense from that lot.

But like any bad smell they will linger on for a while, one or two might try and con the punters into voting them into the Scottish Parliment, some might take the money and run to their outside interests, and the rest, well they will just squabble over who is to be the new leader of a depleted labour group, or how they can get rid of Provost hHnds so they can put Cardownie in and asure themselves of an extra vote if neccessary.

The rest of us mere mortals, we just go on picking up the tab slowly but surely being ground down till our resistance is all but gone.

But have faith my good friends sometimes the greatest plans of mice and men can be changed, so do not let this tale make you despondent, all is not lost.  You the residents of Greater Pilton have the power in those little wooden polling booths you go into every so often. This time when you do, examine the ballot carefully and take a moment to think, how can my communty benifit who best can do the job that is required, when you have done that look down the list of names, and vote with your head not with the party propaganda they try and brainwash you with.

You might get a pleasant suprise some people might emerge who you think can do a better job than the last lot, so when the time comes please vote it really is important, but of equal importance is, make the right choice and have a long memory think back four years and remember the stories you were told and how many of them had a happy ending, not many.

And as we meander through the maze of lies, downright lies and statistics, take heart from the fact that you can change it you and only you.  Promises do not mean a dam thing if in the end all you get is shafted and then told it is good for you.  Friends and readers ask the question why and keep asking it, why have we not been included in the new Jerusalem why can we not get access to the wealth that is being created on the Waterfront why are we being excluded.  Why do we have to settle for second best why do we have services that are second rate.  We are entitled to share in the wealth that is being created not just sidelined some sort of freak show to be looked at by our new richer neighbours in their overpriced rubbish.

No my good readers you can demand more and with justification after all you have stayed loyal to the labour aristocracy, but they have sold you off and cheaply.

Well readers and friends, it seems our good councillor Elizabeth Maginnis is advocating the development of a casino within the Waterfront Development, no doubt in Granton so she can continue to live the good life which her many interests allows her to do. Who voted for this person, surely the last thing we need is more gambling and its associated problems.

This is pure stupidity. We are told it could attract up to 30,000 visitors - SO WHAT!  What she should be pursuing is trying to bring in real sustainable employment to the Granton area not another organisation designed to fleece the punters of their money. It would be far more benificial if Ms Maginnis used her time more productivly- say in her role as Chair of the  very secretive Waterfront Board to secure some of the 9,000 jobs she herself told us there would be available for the local punters,

From the Evening News:

Speaking at yesterday’s full council meeting, Granton councillor Elizabeth Maginnis, said: “If this casino was sited in Granton then you could see up to 30,000 visitors coming to one of the most deprived parts of the city. This development would also bring benefits to the rest of the city.”

It is time that Ms. Maginnis seriously considered her position and real role in this community, possibly she should consider resigning as local councillor - you can almost feel the sigh of relief coming from the community.

PiltonSucks.com believes the casino proposal is a nonsense and does not even bear a second thought. We also feel that gambling and the casino groupies who frequent these places would certainly not enhance the community rather give it yet another blight in its makeup.  One of the ways to rub a community’s face in it is to create an even bigger divide between the haves and the have nots.

Friends and readers this ludicrous idea comes from, wait for it , A LABOUR COUNCILLOR the ordinary peoples party dedicated to lifting the scurge of poverty from our communitys. Doing a good job is she not?

Readers and Friends, take a moment from your hectic lives to close your eyes and allow yourself to dream, to dream of meandering down Waterfront Avenue looking at the pavements that glisten in the early evening almost like gold dust sprinkled in front of you, and as you continue your pleasant stroll you will pass Caroline House and along to yet another building site with the ridiculous name of upper strand.com

But fear not as reality bites in the shape of a sculptured bronzed couple going to the beach.  The lady with a child, the lad with the boat and the man, cloth cap in hand.  Look if you will at them in from a short distance you would swear that the man was looking up at the swanky new development, puzzled as to why he cannot and will never be allowed or encouraged to improve his families lot, and that his life span would be a lot shorter than the residents of swank towers.

Could it be that his life will be cut short by some illness which might have been avoided if he could have afforded the medicine or will his children be given the opportunity in education and employment he never had. Yes friends and readers thank goodness that kind of living is in the past.

But as you leave the soon to be leafy suburbs of Waterfront Avenue the dream is over and suddenly you wake to find yourself at home in a chair with the tv on and a news presenter informing the nation of crisis in the N.H.S.,  education failing our children and employment - oh yes at record levels - but as you know, not were you live.

Thank goodness I woke from that dream.  God only knows how we could have lived with conditions that those poor people remembered in sculpted bronze had to put up with. 

Friends and readers. If you care to take a walk through Royston as we do regularly, you to will have seen if not had a mishap on them the ever decreasing state of the pavements and the roads. It would seem dear friends the local council have lots of spare cash for speedbumps judging by the amount they have built in Wardieburn and Royston.  Not everybody is a “boy racer.”

Indeed some of the -TRAGIC CALMING METHODS - are like mountains and you would need a landrover to get over them certainly a case of over-enthusiasim.  Is it not just as important to have safe pavements and streets free from bear trap potholes and seismic cracks in the pavements. With so many potholes around the community its amazing that no one has seriously hurt them selves but then people probably know where they are.

Edinburgh has so many potholes our rulers should get it put in the tourist guide Wecome to Edinburgh but watch were you walk and put a spare suspension kit in the back of your car-just in case.

P.S. One place that won’t be in the guide, guess where?  Yes you are right - THE WATERFRONT DEVELOPMENT - in fact the Pilton punters  might even be barred form their streets just in case the punters moving in catch the local disease the pothole syndrome.

 

Friends and readers our green spaces are quickly dissapearing to be replaced by housing mostly private mostly out of reach for the average punter in the greater pilton community. The enviromental problems are plainly obvious as is the running down of the existing community. Now our rulers have a good excuse for not investing in the existing stock, blame the tenants who voted no in the recent ballot that took place on stock transfer.

We are now facing the reality of a concrete jungle, only part of the jungle will be substancially richer than the other. In their obscene haste to sell any part of land that our rulers can get away with they forget that as human beings and not just voting fodder we need to be able to see and breath in greenery.

We at PiltonSucks.com are saddened that our rulers have no vision when it comes to green space just a desire to make money and dam what anyone else has to say, in fact completly dissmissed and written off as trouble makers.

You in the near future may reap what you sow or in this case what you allow to be built, so stop and think for a moment and see what you are allowing to happen, green replaced by grey for the sake of greed

Well friends and readers, PiltonSucks.com would like to offer a challenge to any member of the community. There are no particular ground rules, you can phone a friend you can hold a public meeting and ask the audience you could even be daring enough to question your elected member at his or her surgeries.

The challenge is simply this, who will be the first person to spot an affordable house on the new waterfront development.  Of course you would not expect the challenge to be that easy, although you have we believe, more chance of landing on the moon.  That aside there is a supplementry question.  If or when you spot this very elusive affordable home you have to guess how much it will cost,easy is it not?

We at PiltonSucks.com are so confident that no-one will be able to win this challenge we are putting up this fabulous once only offer.

One month from today if no-one has spotted and costed an affordable home PiltonSucks.com will ask our elected members to resign all at once Messers Fitzpatrick, Maginnis and Hinds.  Oh and of course, Mr. Communities Minister and moral coward Chisholm.

PiltonSucks.com are reasonable people we will give you a clue in your hunt for this prized treasure.

We were promised 23% of homes built would be affordable, should not be too hard to find one then should it?

 

Friends and readers it is almost the end of an era, as Granton primary school is to be closed and the land sold off for, would you believe even more rabbit hutches passed off as houses. The schools educational standards under the stewardship of head teacher Mr. Burns have been excellent but that cuts no ice with our local councillor Elizabeth Maginnis who along with her cronies have decided that out with the old and in with the pasturised and sanitised new.

PiltonSucks.com like many other residents fail to see why this school has to close and re-open on Granton Hill.  Surely it could not be to impress the new residents who will be moving into those splendid new homes being built on the waterfront.

But alas as you can guess the truth of the matter is clear, get rid of the school because it is in the way of so called progress, sell off the land to the highest bidder (which of course has already been Pre-decided) and fob off the punters with a third rate building built and leased to our rulers by private enterprise.

So readers PiltonSucks.com asks quite reasonably so what about the kids education?  Surely the peoples party has the interest of working class kids at heart or have they become an embarrasment to Labour as they suck up to private enterprise, only to happy to forget abut who put them in their position in the first place.

Pilton sucks.com offers a thought you may wish to take on board, while those elected members are busy shutting down your community and selling off anything they can, where does that leave the local punter?   Answer, up the creek without the paddle.  So friends and readers what next in the greater Pilton auction where the shout can be clearly heard -EVERYTHING MUST GO! 

 

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.

 

PiltonSucks.com does not profess to be the voice of the people more a watchful eye for them. However, it would seem we have to have eyes in the back of our heads to try and keep pace with what is going on at the citys new Jerusalem.

Community consultation is nowhere to be seen and the powers that be are more than happy to allow this to happen. Building goes on at a relentless pace without a by your leave to the residents of greater Pilton. Originally residents of greater Pilton where told that potentially there were to be up to 9000 jobs available.

PiltonSucks.com asks how many local people are being employed on the development. Why was there no local labour charter put in place before development started to allow for this. We would also like to know how much cheap foreign labour is being employed on the development and for how long.

It would seem that the chief executive Stephen Izatt and the City’s appointed Chair Councillor Elizabeth A Maginnis (pictured left) have some serious questions to answer but of course they seem to be only answerable for how much profit can be squeezed out of the development bypassing any local concerns.

In an area of high unemployment you would have thought that a great opportunity had presented itself in the form of job opportunities but alas we at PiltonSucks.com have to report that no significant dent has been made in local unemployment and running alongside this is the ever growing poverty industry with jobs for the boys the order of the day.

Surely our rulers should have seen this opportunity present itself and demanded a stake for the local community but alas again PiltonSucks.com has to report this is not the case. Even the local news sheet the North Edinburgh News which is in the pocket of the labour council has not taken any kind of stand on local employment issues. Shameful but unfortunatly true.

What are we to do? PiltonSucks.com has a small suggestion, the residents of greater Pilton should show their disgust at the ballot box and throw out those they feel have let them down while feathering their own nests. PiltonSucks.com has a further suggestion elect community candidates and let the community set the local political agenda.

PiltonSucks.com knows of at least two and potentially more candidates who would more than suit the bill. To save embarrasment we will not name them but they are very experienced community activists who we at PiltonSucks.com are sure with a bit of encouragement would take up the challenge and put this community on a sure footing.

Incidently readers, one of these people is as we understand a former labour party member who became alienated at the lack of opportunities for local people and increasingly concerned at the ever growing poverty empire employing people from outwith the community to teach self help to us poor wretched people of greater Pilton.

It is time to change to empower the people to take decisions for them selves not to be kept down by a nest of vipers. Time to make the waterfromt boards accountable to the community not a secret conclave of faceless nameless people determined to keep the community at arms length and at any cost. No longer can the residents of greater Pilton be fed scrapes from the masters table but more seats at the table where they to can drink from the well of prosperity not resigned to a lfe of patronising waffle.