The work of our Inspiring Leith team made local news recently, as they visited Edinburgh City Chambers to campaign for working lifts at the famous Banana Flats.
The Inspiring Leith team facilitates a variety of activities, working alongside local people to strengthen community and raise up individuals.
Part of their work centres on supporting local activism and assisting residents’ associations to stand up for their rights and campaign for better living conditions.
The team work closely with tenants at Cables Wynd House in Leith (otherwise known as the Banana Flats), where they recently partnered with the Making Rights Real charity to support the Residents Group in campaigning for working lifts at the high-rise.
In partnership with Making Rights Real, the Inspiring Leith team put together this statement for press:
Residents of Leith’s famous Banana Flats (Cables Wynd House) visited the City Chambers on Thursday 27th June to make a plea to the Council for lifts they can rely on. The full elected council meeting heard a motion brought by Cllr Katrina Faccenda, in response to residents’ longstanding concerns about broken lifts.
Many tenants have their own stories of being stuck in the lifts, being late for work or school and, in some cases, being housebound because they can’t rely on the ancient lifts.
Residents called for this motion to be passed, and assembled outside of the City Chambers with their supporters before speaking at the meeting.
“Tenants access their flats through galleries on the 2nd, 5th and 8th floors,” said Kirsty Chatwood, of the Cables Wynd Residents Group. “There are lots of families with young children, children with additional support needs such as autism, and people with disabilities and long term health problems who live on the higher floors. Lifts aren’t a luxury: many tenants simply can’t take the stairs, which means reliable lifts is what allows us to enter and leave our homes.”
Cables Wynd Residents Group holding up testimonials from fellow tenants. Some households have been stuck in their flat due to faulty lifts.
The Residents Group, with help from Community Development Workers from Inspiring Leith, designed and carried out action research with their neighbours in the high-rise, following up the survey after two years so that figures from 2022 and 2024 can be compared. The results showed that 58% of residents have had their lives moderately or majorly disrupted by the lifts, and 6.7% of people have been housebound because of the lifts. At time of writing one lift had been out of action for over a month.
The Cables Wynd Residents Group presenting within the City Chambers.
Lorraine Barrie, of human rights charity Making Rights Real, said: “These figures are unacceptable. We consider this evidence speaks to a breach of the human right to an adequate standard of housing, as set out in Article 11 the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.”
“Broken lifts trap disabled people in their homes and have an adverse effect on the lives of unpaid carers, parents and children. Failing to maintain an adequate service amounts to indirect discrimination for these groups, in breach of the Equality Act 2010. There is a real risk to life in an emergency at Cables Wynd in their current state.”
Since the Residents Group visit, the motion was passed unanimously which agreed the Finance and Resources committee would consider the cost of renewing all lifts as part of the retrofit project.
You can find out more about the work of Inspiring Leith here.
Read more in the news:
Making Rights Real | Edinburgh Reporter | Edinburgh Evening News | Edinburgh Live