Edinburgh MP “thrilled” with £20m funding announcement shares how locals can have their say on how it’s spent
Watch our video interview with Chris Murray, MP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.
The MP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh has said it’s been “fantastic” being out in his constituency and meeting with communities during his first year in Parliament and has encouraged residents to have their say on how up to £20m of UK government funding is spent in Edinburgh.
In an interview with the Edinburgh Evening News at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, Chris Murray MP highlighted successes such as a £750m supercomputer for Edinburgh University, which once operational will enable researchers to undertake large-scale complex modelling, test scientific theories and more.
On September 25, the UK government announced the Pride in Place programme, which will see up to £280m of funding shared among 12 Scottish local authorities for regeneration projects - Edinburgh will receive up to £20m of the funding. Mr Murray says he’s “thrilled” about the announcement and has published a Pride in Place community survey to his website where Edinburgh residents can submit their thoughts on what their local area needs.
How has your time as the MP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh been so far?
Chris Murray MP said: “It's been a great first year as the MP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh. It feels like a hundred years I've been an MP because there's been so much that we've been doing. Whether that's getting the most money ever for Scotland in the devolution settlement in its history, whether that's the Employment Rights Act which is banning things like zero-hours contracts and fire and rehire, whether it's getting a supercomputer to Edinburgh University which is going to make us one of the world leaders in new technology. It's been a wild year and of course being out in the constituency with the fantastic communities, it's just been fantastic.”
What are the issues constituents most contact you about and how are you working on these issues?
“The big one is the same as all over the country, it's the cost of living and people feeling like their money isn't going far enough so we're trying a lot of policies to try and deal with that, getting the energy bills down, getting the cost of living down, interest rate cuts, that's really helping people with their mortgages.
“But in Edinburgh specifically, a couple of issues, one is sewage on the beaches at Portobello so we're doing a big campaign to try and deal with that. Another one is the fantastic cultural situation that we have in Edinburgh. In August, we're the world capital of culture and that's brilliant, but it comes with some downsides like phone reception and trying to get through the city centre so working with people on that and a whole host of other issues like climate change, the housing situation that we have in Edinburgh, rents in particular have got really high and a whole host of other issues.”
How can Edinburgh residents get involved with deciding how up to £20m Pride in Place government funding is spent?
“It was a great announcement this week by the UK Government which I was so thrilled about. I've been able to secure from them £20m to spend in Edinburgh making our fantastic place to live an even better place to live. So now what's going to happen is I'm going to be reaching out to people across the community, asking them how could this money be best spent for us. Is it roads? Is it community centres? Is it parks? I've got a survey out on my website just now and I'm out knocking on doors getting people's views - what do we need to do to make Edinburgh, a great place to live, even better - and £20m from the UK Government is fantastic for us.”
You can find the Pride in Place community survey on Chris Murray MP’s website here.