An item of "Breaking News". Will appear on the Breaking News page and the front page.
Council staff were busy delivering ballot boxes and making preparations across Ward 12 today in advance of the Leith Walk by-election on Thursday 11 April.
Votes can be cast between 7am and 10pm at your designated polling station, one of nine peppered across the ward.
Eleven candidates are standing. You can read about some of them HERE.
Leith Street will close to motor traffic again, this time for three weeks, from 7pm on 5 May till 7am on 25 May.
Briefer weekend disruptions are also scheduled in June.
Laing O’Rourke, the contractor building the new Edinburgh St James Quarter, says the closure will stretch from Waterloo Place to Greenside Row. Greenside Row will remain open. Calton Road will close.
Most previous traffic diversions will return, but an Abbeymout gyratory will not be repeated as it takes too long to install and remove. Easter Road traffic-light filters will be adjusted.
Mixed howls of anguish and derision have greeted the disappearance of the recently installed wooden sculpture from Bellevue Crescent Gardens. This was the scene earlier today.
Locals became aware of the squinty-eyed owl’s removal early on Sunday morning.
Most were mystified, but a crushed crocus and line of woodchips leading from park to kerbside suggested to some that it had been hoiked out and driven away in a hurry. Possibly by international art thieves working to order.
The Cockburn Association has recently expressed concern about the potential major redevelopment of Waverley Station which we summarised in Issue 283.
With concern mounting over the prospects of Britain crashing out of Europe, and the potential negative effects of such a hard Brexit on business and visitor numbers in the Scottish capital, you may think this is a difficult time to make money in Edinburgh.
Think again. Enterprising residents are finding a new way to prosper in the face of uncertainty, and observers say it could turn out to be more than a short-term trend.
The new earning model is called ‘warehoming’ or ‘warehosting’.
As you read this, copies of the April Spurtle are already glancing across Broughton like spring rain on an optimist’s BBQ.
Issue 283 kicks off with a note about climate change, the unanticipated arrival of wildlife, and the comings and goings around two very well-known local landmarks.
Take a butcher’s at this.
The capital’s trendiest tote bag, designed by Edinburgh-based artist Alexandra Snowden, will be available the length and breadth of Broughton Street tomorrow.
It comes as local traders celebrate the completion of gas repairs with a wide range of special offers, discounts, and tasters over the weekend. (Look out for balloons outside participating businesses.)
HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF AS FARCE ON EAST SCOTLAND STREET LANE
The latest planning application for the lockup / flat / AirBnB / Class 2 office / lockup on East Scotland Street Lane has been refused (Ref. 18/03340/FUL).
Many thanks to local reader John Hein, who today sent us this photograph of a sign attached to a London Road bus stop.
As Mr Hein observes, ‘Hell hath no fury like a bus user endampened.’
For anyone having trouble with the image, we reproduce the text below (minus the relevant official's phone numbers).
Around 120 people filled the Thomas Morton Hall at Leith Theatre last night for an event billed as the Save Leith Walk (SLW) hustings.
For a by-election on the brink of trams, budget cuts, and Brexit, the atmosphere was remarkably calm and good-natured.
This mood was fostered in part by a celebratory presentation at the start of the evening, which outlined highlights of the (so far successful) campaign to oppose Drum’s development at Stead’s Place, and pointed the way towards future community pro-activeness on planning and a range of other issues.