SO LONG, STICKERS. STAND BY FOR INVASION OF THE TOBLERONES

Last Friday’s ShipShape Elm project, which saw 75 volunteers blitz graffiti, stickers and fly-posting in and around Elm Row, has been hailed as a great success (Breaking news, 5.5.14).

Brunswick Road, parts of Easter Road, London Road and Hillside Crescent are now free of graffiti, thanks to the awesome-sounding Nordic Pioneer and its horn-helmeted commander.

Broughton Street and Annandale Street Lane were zapped by City of Edinburgh Council’s Specialist Services, who worked on graffiti-daubed garages and textured walls near the nursery. A Council barrowman also spent much of the day in the difficult job of sweeping clean the cobbled Broughton Street Lane.
 

Montgomery Street and side streets, Elm Row, East London Street, Gayfield Square, Gayfield Street, Union Street and Broughton Street Lane were the focus of community volunteers. 

Councillors Joanna Mowat (Ward 11) and Deirdre Brock (Ward 12) joined others in removing litter from Elm Row. Afterwards, they presented certificates to P6 pupils from St Mary’s Primary School, recognising their commitment to the local environment.

This was the last of the ShipShape initiatives from Constitution Street to the top of Leith Walk. Smaller projects to address grunge hot spots may follow in the future.

In the meantime, 8 volunteers have offered to store items of kit for use by the public.  Local businesses, for example, can borrow equipment to remove low-level graffiti as it appears on their premises or nearby street furniture. The Graffiti Kit Custodians are  Canderson’s Sweet Shop; Salvation Army; La Favorita (Take Away/Pizza Delivery); Scotmid; Vittoria Restaurant; Magnet; Chrystal Air Travel;  Joseph Pearce Wine Merchants; and Valvona & Crolla.

Shipshape Elm was a team effort, coordinated by CEC's Community Safety Officer Mark Robinson, and its results have already been widely welcomed by local residents and passers-by.

Invasion of the Toblerones

Those same people are, however, a little baffled by the Council’s recent determination to wrap lamp posts in cardboard advertisements for various of their own services and initiatives: trams, fostering, European elections, and recycling.

The campaign does not appear to have followed public requests to read such material, and so far as we are aware, the triangular adverts have not needed any form of planning permission despite being  even more visually intrusive than stickering.

Bizarrely, the decision to distribute these toblerones comes at the very time CEC is consulting on improved street design, one component of which is reducing street clutter.

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PETER VERITY (Scotland Street) EMAILS: Many Edinburgh streets are now furnished with notices saying ‘THE TRAMS ARE COMING ... TRAMS WILL PASS HERE ... Testing now underway’ to which the mental comment (which I have refrained from actually writing on the notices ) is ‘and about ****ing time, too!’ However, the same notice at the top of Broughton Street prompts worrying thoughts ... If a tram does pass here, it has failed to stop, ploughed through the yellow buffer, and is furrowing its way towards Picardy Place and the Conan Doyle statue despite the absence of any rails. Where will it all stop?

@theSpurtle Thanks for drawing the article to our attention. I have pased to my colleagues in trams, elections and waste who feature. ^M