Edinburgh travellers eviction appeal set for July as locals complain about rise in fly-tipping at illegal site
Attempts to evict Edinburgh travellers from an illegal site in Granton have been hampered after the court appeal case was set for July.
Work on the site between West Granton Road and Waterfront Avenue, earmarked for a state-of-the-art home for Scotland's national collection of 130,000 artworks, The Art Works, was due to have started by now, but was scuppered by a failed attempt to remove the group of travellers in January.
The travellers appealed the eviction, and with the case now set for the summer no work will start on-site before then, leaving the travellers where they are for now. And locals are angry at what they say has been a recent rise in fly-tipping and fires at the large site behind B&M Bargains.
One local resident, who asked not to be named, spoke of local frustrations at the court appeal, after the Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture, Angus Robertson, had previously promised that travellers would be removed in January and the site would be cleared.
He said: “I understand that the court appeal is now not till July which is extremely disappointing and means another six months of this blight.
“Mr Robertson gave assurances that the site had been cleared of fly-tipping some weeks ago. That was never the case and now it is even worse and worsening every day with vans coming and going at will.
“There is a significant and continuing daily increase in the amount of industrial scale fly-tipping on and across all areas of the site which is a precursor for massive fires to remove the salvageable waste materials.
“I hope it doesn’t take a serious incident, a bad injury or worse for preventative action to be taken. As landowner, the Scottish Government has a clear duty of care to both prevent and remove the fly-tipped waste from its site and I look forward to being advised how and when this will be done.
“The police service, the council and SEPA all have appropriate legal powers to both prevent and remove the waste. I merely ask for reasonable urgency and action before it worsens even more.”
The main travellers camp at the site has 10 caravans housing 14 children and nine adults, some of whom have lived there since 2019. They are desperate to stay in the area having put down roots in the local community.
One of the travellers, Jim, who asked us not to give his surname, revealed that his wife gave birth to a baby boy, their 11th child, on March 1, and that his and the other traveller families are now playing a waiting game.
Speaking about the upcoming court case, he said: “It buys us a bit of time, so that’s good news. But still nothing is going to change long-term.
“When July comes we will be in the same boat. We are relieved for now obviously, but we still have to face the music in July. Nobody has spoken to us yet about where we can go and our lawyer is on the case, so we are just waiting for now.”
Jim, pointed the finger at outsiders dumping fly-tipping waste at the Granton site, and accused the Scottish Government of blaming the travellers for the mess to help their eviction case.
He said: “I’m sick of seeing it, it’s happening every day, there was lots at the weekend. It’s local people doing the fly-tipping, not us people living here.
“They are fly-tipping down the back of the site, not where we stay. The council and police are doing nothing about it, so why should we?
“I filmed the fly-tipping at the weekend and I’ve seen other videos online of it happening, and you can clearly see it’s nobody that lives here. But we always get the blame.
“I believe the Scottish Government doesn’t want the local police involved so they can blame us for the mess in court, even though it’s nothing to do with us.
“Our grounds are spotless clean, all we can do is keep where we live clean and tidy, we can’t patrol the whole area.
“They need to put up cameras down the back of the site, there are cameras at the entrance but nowhere else. That way they will see that it is clearly not us doing the fly-tipping here.
“I have begged the council for a skip and a monthly pick-up, as we do have to burn our waste on site but we would rather not, we have no choice.”
The Art Works project is part of the wider Granton Waterfront development, with construction work now delayed until the eviction appeal court date in the summer.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “A legal process is being followed by the Scottish Government to obtain an order requiring those illegally camped on Scottish Government-owned land to leave.
"The land is to be cleared as development on the site is due to start following the green light in the Scottish Budget for construction of The Art Works project. Site development and construction works will make it impossible for people to remain there.
“The Scottish Government continues to work closely with the City of Edinburgh Council who have offered support through their homeless service and education department as well as being referred through the NHS.”