Last night, our Gorgie Dalry members took on multi-million pound property developers 'The Social Hub.'
At a public consultation held in Printmakers, Castlemills, members directly questioned and confronted the developers over how their proposed £200m purpose-built student accommodation and hotel development in Fountainbridge meets the needs of locals in dire need of social housing.
Developers were truly rattled and admitted to our members;
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This development will not be affordable for students
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This development is estimated to cost around £1400 per month for a single room
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It is not their responsibility to meet the needs of students, despite developing PBSA, but is the responsibility of Edinburgh council.
Well, they got one thing right, Edinburgh council must not allow any future PBSA in our city!
Have you lived in student accommodation in Edinburgh? Fill out our survey here and help build the case against these exclusionary and exploitative waste of city space.
Here's our member Jo delivering a righteous, angry speech in the face of the fancy folk turning our city in to a theme park.
Read it below;
"Thanks for the opportunity you gave us to ask questions, but I'd like to reply to questions that no one asked me, the people of Dalry or the people of Edinburgh. The people who live here that should be the first ones to know what goes on in their neighbourhoods and the first ones who should have a say in what goes on in their neighbourhoods.-We are angry and we are here fighting for lots of other people who gave up. We are desperate because we can't pay our rents, we need to go to food banks, we keep getting ill with chest infections because of the mould growing in our walls and we can't get a GP appointment.-I want to ask you if you know any of these people? If you even know anything about Edinburgh? Do you live here? Do you know that you're running this city?-Because maybe if you knew any of them, I would hope that you would care. I really can't or don't believe that you are so inhumane.-But why should you care, right? You just want to build and make profit, but do you know the effect that this has on the people around here? Do you know that you are taking up space for people to live in safe, secure, affordable social housing? Do you know that you are driving up all the rental prices in this area? That you are pushing away entire communities who love Edinburgh, who want to stay here, because this is their home but they just can't afford to be at home.-And you must know of the students who live in your developments. I have a friend who's a prison officer and when he was a student here he lived in a building like the one you want to build and he told me the room where he lived was as big as a prison cell. His room was underground with no light coming through - he overpaid for something he could have gotten for free if he committed a crime. He was completely cut out from the local community meaning he had no friends and his mental health got worse.-The community you are talking about is not community at all, its marketing. You can't force people to build a community, part of building a community is belonging and my friend did not belong anywhere other than the walls where he felt trapped. He wasn't able to know the real Edinburgh, the Edinburgh you are destroying by building useless buildings that no one needs, tearing communities apart and isolating students.-You are taking up space that could be used for communities to meet and feel part of a real city without having to pay £4 for coffee. Community is something we create together, not something we buy or rent. You are taking up space and you are not welcome here.-We want an Edinburgh that is real, not a place for transition for students or tourists who come and go. We want to live in a real city with real buildings, where people are connected, not this theme park city you are creating.-Some people have given up, but those of us here have not, we are Living Rent and we will not stop fighting for the city we live in."
