Edinburgh council elections 2022: SNP and Labour candidates admit bin hubs policy a mistake

Candidates from Edinburgh's two ruling parties have admitted one of the administration's most controversial policies was a mistake.

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Quizzed at a hustings over the roll-out of communal bin hubs, City Centre SNP candidate Finlay McFarlane said there had to be "a better way forward" and Labour's Margaret Graham said if she was elected the hubs would be "something in the dim and distant past".

They also accepted the council needed to do better on consultation and conceded there were problems with the Spaces for People schemes.

The plans for communal bin hubs in the New Town has caused a storm of protests from residents concerned about the impact on the World Heritage Site and at one stage there was a threat of legal action to halt the move. There have also been complaints in other parts of the city where the hubs have already been installed

New Town and Broughton community council (NTBCC) has suggested a range of measures for consideration, including improvements to the system of gullproof sacks used in some streets, mobile recycling pods and underground bins.

When the issue was raised at the City Centre hustings organised by the Broughton Spurtle, Mr McFarlane said: “I truly recognise the strength of community feeling on this.” He said he had not been a councillor so he was not party to the decision-making or the conversations held. But he said: “Where I need to concede on behalf of my party is that in terms of consultation, especially with Edinburgh World Heritage, we were incredibly lax. It is incredibly disappointing for me to hear that. I have spoken to your MSP Angus Robertson, who I know is publicly against the proposals and I’ve also tried to get the ear of [environment convener] Lesley Macinnes.

“I’m very pleased there has been a moratorium on the decision and the council is putting in a substantial sum of money to employ external professional consultants to explore potential options. My commitment to you is try and secure or broker the best possible outcome for you. There has to be a better way forward. And I think some of the suggestions from the NTBCC have been entirely sensible and it upsets me that things feel like they have been brushed off.”

A mock-up of how the bin hubs could look in the New Town

Ms Graham said as soon as she realised how much residents were opposed to the hubs she wrote to Labour’s current City Centre councillor and environment vice-convener Karen Doran calling for something to be done. She said: “The Labour party is about communities, representing people and listening to them. I was quite disconcerted this had got to the stage it was. Along with my colleague in Inverleith, Mhairi Munro, we’re working to make sure this does not happen. If we're elected, communal bins hubs will be something in the dim and distant past.”

Green councillor Claire Miller said her party had originally supported bin hubs. “We were looking at how to improve communal bin collections throughout the city because at the moment I think everyone would recognise they do not work well – the bins are dirty, they get vandalised, get broken, the street around them doesn’t get cleaned often enough, the pick-ups aren’t frequent enough or the bins aren’t big enough. So originally we did support bringing in bin hubs in all of the city.

“However the work that has been done very recently with the residents associations and community councils in this area has raised some really great opportunities. What we now need to be doing is looking at that, looking at the options the council can consider and make sure what we do is something that is supported by everybody.”

She also argued there was a need to reduce the amount of waste so the number of bins, pick-ups and the cost could all be reduced. “At the moment we've got sporadic, small networks for re-use, recycle, upcycle repair, etc and we need to increase that.”

Critics say communal bins are too often not emptied frequently enough.

Tory councillor Joanna Mowat said before the pandemic there was a project looking at improving gull-proof sacks. “There was an absolute concrete guarantee from officers the next stage would involve consultation with residents. The SNP, Labour and Green councillors all voted not to go forward with the consultation. We’ve now got this hiatus and we can go back.”

And Lib Dem candidate Andy Foxall, who said his party had called for a halt to the hubs, added: “It's about consulting residents. I don’t know how you could trust now the SNP, Labour and Green councillors with big decision ever again if this is how they treat residents.”

Alba candidate Kevan Shaw said communal bins were “wrong” in the New Town and did not work.

On Spaces for People, Finlay McFarlane for the SNP said the programme had been implemented when it was necessary to increase pedestrian space for social distancing.

Gull-proof sacks are currently used in some streets in the New Town

“In terms of the ugliness of Spaces for People, cities all around the planet were trying to so similar things at the same time so there was a massive supply issue in terms of what we could get at short notice. I think the next administration has to take pause, think about what worked, what didn't, bin what didn't or improve it and make it work and then move forwards.”

Margaret Graham for Labour said she did not like some of the measures but believed others had been an improvement. “One of the problems is it does slow car journeys down in certain parts of the city.”

And she urged everyone to cut their car journeys. “Nobody is saying take you car away – lots of people can’t live without their car – but just start thinking about every car journey you take. The fewer car journeys we have the better it'll be in the long run for everyone.”

Claire Miller for the Greens said she had called for Spaces for People measures because she had seen similar schemes in cities across the world, but what happened here was different. “What we implemented was very small projects in a very piecemeal way, which didn’t join up corridors where people wanted to go and the routes people wanted to take. Although those mistakes have been made I would definitely look to try to improve what we have done and I think the feedback people have given is the information we need to make the changes that would make those schemes successful in the future.”

But Joanna Mowat for the Tories said they would remove Spaces for People schemes except around schools where they were popular. “It's not necessarily the principle that's wrong but the implementation and that needs to be worked through carefully. We would go back and we will do things with consent.”

Alba’s Kevan Shaw said Spaces for People was “a good idea incredibly badly done”.

And Lib Dem Andy Foxall said: “We need to consult the residents. Where they are popular we need to keep them, where they're unpopular we need to take them out.”