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Ben's monthly blog

What did I get up to in December 2024?

Morningside Councillor Ben Parker’s monthly blog.

It’s not always easy to find time to shout about all the work we are involved in as councillors, and sometimes the job can be quite opaque to members of the public. To try and help demystify just exactly what the job of a councillor is, I’ve decided to start a monthly blog of activities I’ve been involved with. Whilst this won’t be fully comprehensive, I hope it will give a sense of the sorts of projects I’m working on, and just how varied the work can be.

Accessible housing

As part of my ongoing work on the Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work committee, I am working to improve provision of accessible housing across the city. The council has an internal target to provide 10% of housing as ‘accessible’ but our current 5-year investment plan only has provision for 5%.

In order to give this issue the recognition it deserves, I am in the process of organising an ‘Accessible Housing Summit’ which will bring together colleagues across housing and planning within the council, as well as 3rd sector organisations, disabled people’s organisations, landlords, letting/estate agencies and developers to discuss the issue. There is a lot more we can do to improve standards across all different housing tenures in the city, and to make it easier for disabled people to find homes which suit them.

You can read more about plans for the summit here (PDF).

Road safety in Morningside schools

Since being elected in 2022 I have worked closely with schools across the ward to improve road safety for children and young people.

At the end of last year, an accident involving a child on the way to school at South Morningside Primary School highlighted why so many of us have concerns about this, and I was able to host a meeting with other ward councillors, MSP and MP to discuss the issue at the school in the autumn. The Parent Council at South Morningside Primary School then brought a petition to the council’s Transport and Environment Committee in December which I was happy to support. Short-term gains have since been achieved by improving sightlines at the junction where the accident happened, but long-term changes are still needed to help children and young people to walk, wheel and cycle to school safely.

You can watch back the discussion and deputations from parents and myself at the Transport and Environment committee meeting here.

Biodiversity gains

In 2023 I brought a motion to convince the council to declare a nature emergency and, at budget time in February 2024, we secured funding for a whole nature emergency team. Now that team is bedding in, I’m thinking hard about what projects/changes we can hope to see happen across the city.

As a member of the Planning Committee, I am heartened by new requirements through the National Planning Framework 4 for developers to contribute to the enhancement of biodiversity on development sites, and I’m encouraging the council to think about how expected developer contributions on smaller sites can be used to deliver larger scale nature restoration projects, for example ‘nature networks’ to improve habitat connectivity across the city. I’ve been enjoying attending the Winter Webinar series with Planning Democracy and APRS which discuss these issues (and more!).

Support on ban for fossil fuel advertising

In May 2024, the council supported my motion to ban the advertisement of fossil fuel companies, arms manufacturers and high carbon products on council owned advertising spaces. This has meant no more adverts for fossil-fuel companies, airlines and airports, fossil-fuel powered cars, all SUVs and cruise ships on billboards, bus stops and digital media. At the time, the story hit the national press and the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has since called for a world-wide ban on high carbon advertising.

In December I was asked to speak at a conference on ‘Navigating the Future for Fossil Fuel Advertising’ with ACT Climate Labs, Purpose Disruptors and Clean Creatives where I was heartened by the growing support for the movement across the UK. I am also working closely with councillors in other local authorities to encourage them to make the same changes in their councils.

Council leadership

At the City of Edinburgh’s December meeting of the full council, Scottish Greens and SNP councillors joined together in an attempt to replace the existing Labour-led council administration.

As part of this, I was proposed for Convener of the Council’s Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work committee and you can watch my contribution at the meeting here. While this attempt was unsuccessful, we will continue to push the minority leadership to take meaningful action to tackle the climate and nature emergencies and reduce inequality.