City Council

A SENIOR manager has left Lothian buses less than a year into the post, the Evening News has learnt.

Edinburgh was home to one of the largest ever independent marches on Sunday with tens of thousands descending on the Capital.

WITH the announcement that the All Under One Banner pro-independence rally is to go ahead in Edinburgh today, here’s everything you need to know ahead of the march.

Historic Environment Scotland has insisted that a ban on a pro-independence rally at Holyrood Park remains in force - despite claims to the contrary by rally organisers.

ORGANISERS of a pro-independence march through Edinburgh tomorrow have claimed victory in their bid to hold part of the rally in Holyrood Park.

Edinburgh has launched its own poverty commission on the same day as a leading charity revealed worries about the quality of temporary accommodation for homeless people in the Capital.

In last week’s column, I wrote about the invitation extended by the company CGI, which provides the city council’s IT requirements, to two councillors and three officials to visit their enterprises in San Diego, Los Angeles and Montreal.

The scorched site of former Hunter’s Tryst Primary could finally be turned into housing as plans for 85 new affordable homes are recommended for approval.

In July last year, I wrote the first of these columns wondering what the summer influx of tourists would think of our city. I highlighted the failures of the council to deliver high-quality, basic services and how at least some of that would be visible to those tourists.

Much store has been placed by the SNP-Labour administration on its laudably ambitious plan to deliver 20,000 new affordable homes in the next ten years, but the question is not whether it is deliverable, but if it is ambitious enough.

The goings-on at the City Chambers remind me of the children’s song “Ten Green Bottles”, but in this case it is no accident that four councillors have ‘fallen’ by choosing to leave their respective party groups and continue to serve as independents.

As the Jazz and Blues Festival paraded on Sunday, the city’s festivals season truly began. It’s that time of year when we can marvel in the beauty of our city and ask whether there is a better place in the world to live and work.

I have sympathy for Timberbush Tours who are complaining that Lothian Buses’ new Lothian Motorcoaches tour business is a public sector operator using its muscle to distort a commercial market.

A DODGY businessman who helped orchestrate a massive work-for-bungs scam that rocked the Capital has been ordered to hand over an extra £20,000 in ill-gotten gains.

First of all, let me say that I do not support the Scottish Government’s position on the tourist tax, as I fully support its implementation in the city of Edinburgh. And, as the former Festivals and Events Champion for nigh on 20 years, I have consistently expressed this view both privately and publicly.

It’s fair to say that SNP politicians never have been and never will be fans of Tony Blair.

Garden tax could be the first of many top-up charges, warns Lib Dem group leader Robert Aldridge.

ANOTHER “hooray” is for the Edinburgh city council leader, Adam McVey SNP, who is continuing to push for a tourism tax in the city.