Scottish Water donates Cherry Picker to Colinton Tunnel Community art project

Scottish Water has donated £950 for a cherry picker to support the Colinton Tunnel community art project in completing the final touches to their mural.

Ongoing works at Colinton Tunnel.

Local artist Chris Rutterford had recently created a 140m mural depicting Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem ‘A view from a railway carriage’ along with artworks representing the community.

Chris was assisted by his partner, two specialist street artists as well as nearly 600 local schoolchildren

But Scottish Water is also having to access the same space as they are working on a project to help improve the environment in and around the Water of Leith.

The two entities have been working closely to ensure that work on both projects is able to be undertaken at the same time.And as part of this understanding, Scottish Water donated £950 so that the artists could hire a Cherry Picker instead of carrying out the time consuming process of erecting scaffolding to finish off their snagging work.

This project in the previously derelict tunnel is understood to be the first of its kind and is now the largest heritage mural in Scotland.

Mike Scott, Chairman of the Colinton Tunnel project said: “Having raised almost £100,000 of money from local people and some generous organisations to create this stunning artwork, we were initially very concerned about the challenges that we would face when Scottish Water’s contractors began work.

“But that worry was minimised when Scottish Water funded the cost of hiring a cherry picker and we saw their professionalism on the job.”The utility is installing new and improved wastewater infrastructure to help prevent items which are wrongly flushed down the toilet – which include wipes, sanitary products and cotton wool - from overflowing into the river during severe storm events.Scott Fraser, Communities Manager at Scottish Water, said: “From the outset we wanted to cause as little disruption as possible to this incredible art project and ensure people using the area where we were working had as much access as possible. We are delighted to be able to help the art team finish off the final aspects of work by funding this equipment to let them complete their snagging list.”

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