South Meadows Action Group (SMAG)
Newsletter
December 2025
‘Persistence is the driving force behind enduring success’
Dear SMAG Member,
Season’s Greetings! With our best wishes for 2026 — May all your Bins be tidy & quiet! —
Progress on Bin Hub Review
There is a Transport and Environment Committee (TEC) Meeting at 10.00 am on January 29th, 2026.
We know that the Bin Hub Review that started in mid-2023 has taken 18 months to reach a decision, with a further 6 months (?) of implementation.
We must therefore assume that our SMAG supported submissions, made for Bin Hub location change, will follow a similar process: taking from June 2025 to the summer of 2027 to complete! This is very different from the indications for change that were stated/implied by City Councillors and CEC Staff in 2025.
Your Committee is therefore writing to the Council, in early January, to express our extreme disappointment about the delays which keep occurring, in their Bin Hub Review decision-making, and demanding the right to present SMAG’s case to the TEC at that meeting.
SMAG Member Involvement
We will advise you once we have obtained access to the meeting (which will not be until mid-January) and we suggest that, in the mean-time, you email to your Councillors asking them when you can expect a response to your June submissions.
Keep the TEC Meeting date in your diary because we will be leading a deputation to the Spectators Gallery for that meeting and will need support.
Councillors – https://democracy.edinburgh.gov.uk/mgFindMember.aspx
MSPs
MP/Secretary of State for Scotland – [email protected]
IT WILL ONLY BE BY MAKING A CONCERTED, CONTINUOUS EFFORT, TO GET THE CHANGES WE NEED, THAT WE CAN HOPE TO SUCCEED.
Those councillors who support us need our pressure to achieve reasonable change.
Press Coverage
We are in contact with journalists, and they are looking for real, lived stories to bring this issue to life for readers.
What makes the strongest impact is honesty.
That includes difficult, frustrating, or unacceptable experiences. If we want change, we need to make some noise now. SMAG Members all have stories that show what is not working, what has gone wrong, or what should never have happened…….Please share that with us, as a matter of urgency, now. Send your thoughts, stories, examples and pictures to [email protected] now. Personal details can be handled sensitively but if there is anyone about who is happy to speak out, we need that too. Your voice matters.
Liaison with Marchmont & Sciennes Community Council (MSCC)
SMAG will continue to attend MSCC Meetings to look after your interests and will report back. Their next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday 28th January 2026, at 7.30.
Noise around the Bin Hubs
Since this disturbance is a big part of the Bin Hub issue, we will continue to monitor events. However, we do need to get past the formal Bin Hub Review before we can assess our future strategy.
Using and Promoting the SMAG website
The website www.smagsco.org is our official site. Please visit, and tell your friends and neighbours.
We intend to display a photo-set to the TEC/CEC Meeting on January 29th and so we would be grateful if you could take pictures and send a copy of your photos of any Bin Hub abuse to the SMAG website here:
[email protected] .…….so that they can be posted publicly.
We intend to use the SMAG website to highlight current issues and to make regular reports, so please pass any thoughts or ideas to: [email protected]
Next SMAG Committee Meeting and your own Ideas
Our next SMAG Committee meeting will be in early January. Any thoughts / ideas you may have to pass to the TEC/CEC, or any views you wish to share with the Committee, should be emailed to:
[email protected] — PLEASE ADVISE US BY EARLY JANUARY —
Help us to make these changes and our thanks for your support
Kate, Alastair, June, Silke & Nick