Porty Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Like so much else, Portobello’s Community Hub at Bellfield has been closed throughout the pandemic. The governing body that manages the building, Action Porty, has not been idle through this time. Work has been carried out to improve the building, they’ve invested in the equipment needed to re-open safely and they’ve been thinking about the future – not just the next few months bu...

Send us Fan Mail How did you spend your lockdown? Some people helped others in the community. Some turned to reading or writing – writing the limericks we heard about a few weeks ago for example. Some chose to take a hobby or an enthusiasm and turn it into a business. We’ll be hearing from some of them over the coming weeks. We’ll start with Caitlin Knox who turned her passion for baking into a sm...

Send us Fan Mail Portobello Town Hall is now OUR Town Hall. On Thursday afternoon, the City of Edinburgh Council accepted the proposal put forward by Porty Central, the action group that’s been working hard to ensure that we got to this position. So now, the hard work really begins. In the Council’s own estimate, the building will need £1m over the next three years for it to be fully refurbished....

Send us Fan Mail The pandemic has forced us all to rethink the way we work. Do we really need to be in an office from 9-to-5, 7 days a week? Do we really need a work culture where the first to leave at the end of the day is somehow not committed enough to the organisation? Over the last year, we have discovered that it is possible to work from home. Many of us have embraced Zoom, Microsoft Teams a...

Send us Fan Mail Keep Porty Tidy has appeared in various guises. A couple of years ago for instance, Larry the Lobster was on patrol along the beach and prom. This month however has seen the campaign take a massive step up with the arrival of an army of volunteers, armed with litter picking tools, all ready to clear up what is, frankly, the mess that some people leave behind. And this time, it’s p...

Send us Fan Mail On Thursday this week, there was an online conference and workshop run by Porty Community Energy, which brought together experts in the field along with some of those who practice what they preach. The theme was Low Carbon Transport in Portobello and the idea was not just to look at what was happening here but also to learn from others by looking at what they have been doing elsew...

Send us Fan Mail You may have noticed in the media that the Portobello Sailing and Kayaking Club has been awarded £75,000 by Sports Scotland to build what they’re called a new water sports hub. But that money depends on the club being able to themselves raise at least that sum before the project can move forward. So this weekend, the first in a series of fund raising activities are taking place as...

Send us Fan Mail There’s an intriguing book currently doing the rounds in Porty under the catchy title of “Life and other distractions in and around Portobello past and present”. But what makes it really different and thoroughly readable (in a dip into way) is that it’s presented in 200 limericks written and privately published by local resident Jim Hurford. He’s also persuaded 18 (mostly local) a...

Send us Fan Mail It’s been long awaited. People have been talking about its imminent arrival. But this week, Civerinos Porty Slice will finally open to the public from its premises on the Prom. When the weather finally improves, people will be able to hire a deckchair and sit on the Prom or the beach enjoying their slice of pizza – or take a whole 20 inch pizza home. As we’ll be hearing, Civerinos...

Send us Fan Mail With schools now back and some relaxation in the rules we’ve all lived under for the past year, it’s good to hear about a new business being set up to encourage children to get out into the open air and learn new sports – and perhaps a new language as well. “Sport and Spanish” will start holding classes outdoors here in Portobello as well as The Meadows and Inverleith Park. It’s t...

Send us Fan Mail The past year has been hard for so many people and businesses. We have become used to working from home, online meetings on Zoom, Microsoft Teams or one of the other online services, as well as home schooling and not being able to travel far for work of leisure. The Chancellor offered some help through the furlough scheme – but it didn’t apply to everyone, such as the self-employe...

Send us Fan Mail When David Calder set up the Porty Podcast back in 2016, he never thought it would last much beyond Christmas, much less 200 episodes four and a half years later. The thing about Portobello is that it has a strong community spirit with a lot of quite strong-minded and determined people wanting to make things happen and to make things better for the community. So in this episode, D...

Send us Fan Mail This past week has been rather a difficult one. One of the key messages from all of the medical staff over the past three-and-a-half years has been: be careful how you manage your energy. This has been all too obvious over the last few days, especially after the Co-Vid vaccine last weekend. The previous week had been quite stressful. And so, waking up on Sunday and Monday in parti...

Send us Fan Mail Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. But if you’re looking for love or romance, trying to do so during a pandemic is a major problem. That’s the theme that Porty Playwright Claire Wood took for her latest online production, Love Roulette, which opens tonight on Zoom in a show that’s free but ticketed. What she’s created is a television game show, one where the audience decides on which of...

Send us Fan Mail It’s Friday the 12th of February. Welcome to Porty News.  In case you didn’t know, today is the Chinese New Year (Happy New Year or shin nee-an kwai le with apologies for the pronunciation) and this is the year of the ox. It’s a celebration we’ve been invited to share many times in the past. However, we were rather disturbed to learn that the Police here in Scotland have been incr...

Send us Fan Mail It’s Thursday the 11th of February. Welcome to Porty News from the Porty Podcast.  Firstly, thanks to local MP Tommy Sheppard for pointing out the call by Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) for the £20 a week uplift in Universal Credit to be made permanent. In its latest briefing document, it describes the extra £20 a week, introduced at the start of the pandemic, as vital in improvin...

Send us Fan Mail It’s Wednesday the tenth of February. Welcome to today’s bulletin from Porty News.  And thanks to several people who’ve drawn attention to the news that we will soon have a cycle path (albeit temporary) from Portobello all the way to Musselburgh. The City of Edinburgh Council had taken soundings from local people who liked the idea – but it would have to stop at the East Lothian b...

Send us Fan Mail It’s Tuesday the 9th of February. Welcome to this edition of Porty News.  It seems that the Spaces for People scheme is now causing issues in Duddingston - in particular, the plans for Duddingston Road. The team running the project met up with the 4 local councillors and agreed to organise a residents’ meeting to discuss the concerns some residents have. Some of these include the...

Send us Fan Mail It’s Monday the 8th of February and welcome to the 7th edition of Porty News from the Porty Podcast. I’m David Calder  Art Walk Porty has ambitions to involve more communities than just Portobello, though we’ll remain very much at its heart. One example of this is called ‘Line Walk Mindful Drawing’ which is part of an ongoing residency in Craigmillar and surrounding area. Led by t...

Send us Fan Mail Portobello Singer-songwriter Rosie Nimmo’s fourth album, “Where Time Suspends”, has just been released. Produced by Marc Pilley (ex-Hobotalk, and now Arksong) , its ten tracks have been a long time in the making – and the lockdown didn’t help though the internet has brought together several different musicians to produce a beautiful, polished sound. They include local artists Mair...

Send us Fan Mail It’s Friday the 5th of February. Welcome to the 6th bulletin from Porty News  You may have seen the posts from Portobello Community Council (PCC) about the two “expressions of interest” in Portobello Town Hall. As we’ve reported before, one of these comes from a community group (Portobello Central) and another from a ballet school (Peter Schaufuss). Both groups have now submitted...

Send us Fan Mail It’s Thursday the 4th of February. Welcome to the fifth bulletin from Porty News  We were delighted to read that Handicabs are offering FREE transport for people with mobility issues who’ve an appointment to get their vaccine. This applies to anyone who has difficulty getting out and about due to age, disability or heath issues. Usually to use Handicabs, you need to be registered...

Send us Fan Mail It’s Wednesday the 3rd of February and this is the fourth bulletin from Porty News  First, a couple of pieces of information from the City of Edinburgh Council! The first has to do with the brown bins we use for garden waste. As you know, households have to buy a permit costing £25 to benefit from this service and registration to join is open from now until 2pm on 16 February – an...

Send us Fan Mail You may have come a cross the Council’s proposals for Seafield, which it describes as an “urban area housing-led mixed-use site” – whatever that means. In practice, it means turning the ‘metal mile’ into a new shoreline community. If done well, it could be real asset, transforming the western end of Portobello beach. However, the document contains the following warning: The potent...

Send us Fan Mail Early last year, we spoke to Harem Murdochy, owner of the Boat House, St Andrews chippie and other establishments around Portobello. At that time, he had just signed a lease to turn part of the Pumping Station at the Joppa end of the Prom into a seafood restaurant – and we don’t just mean a fish-and-chip shop there. He was thinking of much more up-market fare – mussels, perhaps lo...