The Scottish Government has announced that, from Monday 2 November, the whole of Edinburgh (including Queensferry and Kirkliston) will be placed into the Tier 3 COVID protection level.

So what does this mean?

– no in-home socialising.
– only meeting 6 people from up to 2 households outdoors.

– no non-essential travel into or out of the City of Edinburgh area except for essential travel for work, education, shopping health etc; outdoor exercise; weddings and funerals; shared parenting.
– non-essential use of public transport should be avoided.

– all shops can remain open as normal but face-masks must be worn.

– cafes and restaurants must close at 6pm and seating and drinking must be at tables.
– takeaways are permitted for alcohol and food.

– hairdressers, libraries, churches and other places of worship (restricted numbers) can remain open.

– nurseries and schools remain open.
– informal childcare is still permitted in line with household/numbers restrictions.

– indoor gyms stay open but for individual exercise only (exemption for under 18s)

– people who are shielding should limit meeting people outside your their household and avoid indoor public spaces.

You can get more details here.
https://www.gov.scot/…/coronaviru…/pages/protection-level-3/

The law changes in Scotland from today (29 May) in terms of the legally permitted reasons to leave your home.

The following is the complete list of allowed reasons. Please remember to still stay at home whenever you can to help control the virus.

Permitted reasons to leave your home;

? to obtain basic necessities, including food and medical supplies, money, or other supplies from a business (now including garden centres) or for a vulnerable person.

?‍♂️to take exercise, either alone, with other members of your household or members of one other household.

? to take part in outdoor recreation alone, with members of your household or members of one other household.

? to seek medical assistance, including to access to dental services and vets.

♻️ to access recycling or waste disposal services.

? to provide care or assistance to a vulnerable person, including to provide emergency assistance.

❤️ to donate blood.

? to travel for the purposes of work or to provide voluntary or charitable services, where it is not reasonably possible for you to work or provide that services, from the place you live.

⛪ to attend a funeral of a member of your household or a close family member.

?‍⚖️ to fulfil a legal obligation, including attending court or satisfying bail conditions, or to participate in legal proceedings.

? to access critical public services, including childcare or educational facilities.

? to access social services, services provided by the Department of Work and Pensions and services provided to victims.

? in relation to children who do not live in the same household as their parents, or one of their parents, to continue existing arrangements for access.

? to move house where reasonably necessary.

‼️to avoid injury, illness or to escape a risk of harm.

Remember, if you are leaving your house for a reason that doesn’t fall into one of the categories above then you could be considered to be causing an offence.

We know the spread of Coronavirus is causing difficulty and concern. Equally, from Queensferry to Muirhouse and from Kirkliston to Cramond, we’ve been blown away by the local community spirit and the willingness of local people to help where they can.

As your local representatives, we want to make sure vulnerable people in get the help they need.  This could be help with groceries, getting a prescription or posting urgent mail.

It is why we are working together to match people who need help with others willing and able to volunteer. This scheme covers Queensferry, Kirkliston, Cramond, Davidson’s Mains, Ratho Station, Newbridge, Muirhouse and Gogar.

We want to hear from people who may need assistance over the coming weeks as well as people who can volunteer locally.

If you think you might need help or know of someone who does, please complete our online form here.

If you are prepared to volunteer to help someone else locally, please click here.

We also want to highlight local Facebook pages set up for Kirkliston and for Queensferry to help coordinate help locally and provide information and ideas on services that you can get direct to your door.

Please do let us know if there are others ways we can help. Equally if you’d just appreciate a call from one of us to talk through any issues and to help with any questions, please let us know by replying to this email.

With best wishes,

Cllr Kevin Lang                                Cllr Louise Young
Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP               Christine Jardine MP

PS – Please remember to always follow the latest government advice to help control the spread of the virus.

We’ve received this update from the Queensferry High School project team. We’re pleased to see that everything is on course for the new building being complete by the end of March.

For the last few months, we have been running a survey for residents on the Miller Homes proposals for 2,000 more homes in Kirkliston.

The plans cover land to the east of the village along both sides of Burnshot Road. There is currently no specific planning application and any final plan would need permission from the Council to proceed.

You can get more information, including a map of the plan here

We want to say a big thank you to all those people who took part in the survey. Over 1,000 local residents fed in their views and we can now provide the results.

Most of the 1,000+ residents who took part provided some detailed comments which we are carefully looking at.

We will keep local people informed as and when things develop on this. In line with the wishes of our constituents (see question 6) we will not be taking a position at this stage.

We were pleased to see that hundreds of local people attended the Cala Homes drop in events over yesterday and today to discuss the plans for the Springfield site next to the Queensferry Crossing.

Approximately 180 homes are planned for the site with 25% affordable housing. There would be a single entrance into the development from Bo’ness Road.

We spoke with the Cala staff and saw them considering changes to the layout in response to some of the points made over the last 24 hours.

A planning application is likely in March/April with a final decision by the end of the year.

You can see all the information, including the initial layout plans, here

The new sign up period for garden waste collections has opened today (20 January) and runs until 2pm on 3 February.

This is for anyone who *has not* yet registered and paid for collections for up to October this year. There will be a different registration period for October onwards.

You can get more information and register here.
https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/gardenwaste

Edinburgh Council has now published a draft plan, setting out options on how the city could grow and develop by 2030.

This is important for Kirkliston as it does, for the first time, include the option of taking the land to the east of village out of the greenbelt. This would then allow the kind of 2,000 home development (doubling the size of the village) suggested recently by Miller Homes.

This document will go before the planning committee next week before a public consultation.

It’s important to say that this is just one option in the paper. There is another option which would see development focused only on brownfield sites nearer the city centre.

We need to see what the committee does with the draft plan next week. However, presuming the paper and the options goes out to public consultation then it will be vital for local people in Kirkliston to make their views known.

We’ll make sure to post more details once the consultation is live.

Meanwhile, you can read the whole report here (pages 39, 45-47 are most relevant).

https://democracy.edinburgh.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx…

We met with Transport for Edinburgh today for an update on plans to extend the bike hire scheme to Queensferry and Kirkliston.

The bike hire scheme has been running successfully in parts of Edinburgh for 16 months. We pushed to get this extended west so we’re pleased to hear this is likely to happen from this March.

A number of different hire points are being looked at, including Dalmeny Station; the Marina and Tesco in Queensferry as well as the cross roads and leisure centre in Kirkliston.

We also pushed today to get a new point added at next to Scotmid and the health centre in Queensferry.

The prices would be the same as the central Edinburgh scheme – £1.50 for single hour hires; £3 for day pass and £90 for annual pass.

Final plans are still being worked up but we hope folks will agree this is a really positive development. We’ll make sure to keep people updated.

Council roads officials have confirmed the new pedestrian crossing on Queensferry Road is set to be put in place in early March.

We have pushed hard for this new crossing to improve safety and had hoped it would be installed over the Christmas period.  However, the availability of contractors to carry out the work means it will need to take place in March.  This date has now been agreed and there should be no further delays to the delivery of these works.