CAPACITY BUILDING PROJECT
Community Reps Columns
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6th September 2005
As per usual, the daily business of the Community Reps continues to be dominated by the City Council’s regeneration proposals for Craigmillar. As this article goes to press, the reps are in the process of organising a public meeting to be held at the Richmond Church on 15th September.
The meeting is being organised to give residents of Wauchope Square the opportunity to discuss their concerns about the pending demolition of their properties and the Council’s ambiguous proposals to re-house them. Again at the time of writing, we have had no indication from the City Council or The Craigmillar Joint Venture Company as to whether they will send representatives to the event - despite an invite to speak going out at least a month in advance.
To make matters more frustrating and confusing, after received the Community Council’s invite, the City Council and the CJVC organised their own public meeting, which is due to take place on Tuesday 6th September at the Hays Business Centre. It is disappointing that they have not had the courtesy to ask representatives from either Craigmillar Community Council or Craigmillar Partnership to attend the event; this is despite assurances from senior members of the CJVC board along with Councillor Perry that they were all committed to serious and meaningful communication with both community bodies.
Perhaps this stance should come as no real surprise though; both the Partnership and the community council have long been opposed to the CJVC’s plans, and despite the bitter and vociferous uninformed ramblings from a tiny minority within the community, who seem more content writing letters full of angry words but with scant analysis of the real issues, we have always been open and honest about our opinions and have always clearly communicated the reasons why we hold them.
It is sad that the City Council seem to have been successful in hiving off a small section of the community with whom they can hold meetings and then claim to have consulted the community, whilst completely ignoring the voices of the 300 people who showed up at over 7 public meetings earlier this year and, whilst taking part in an open and honest democratic debate, showed that they bitterly oppose the plans.
With genuine respect for their time and effort, the 20 people from the regeneration forum who sat down with staff from the Neighbourhood Alliance and the CJVC and were guided through the document page for page without producing any official report or publication, can not claim any real or meaningful legitimacy in representing this community. 300 people represents nearly 5% of Craigmillar residents – you can’t speak louder or clearer than that. It is time that all activists involved in community forums started to represent these voices – that, after all, is what we call democracy.