On Friday, Cllr Stephen Jenkinson has written to Transport Secretary, Stephen Flynn, asking the government to confirm their commitment to support the transformation<\/a> of the line into Leith\u2019s answer to New York\u2019s High Line. <\/p>\n Since May, political and public momentum has gathered behind the project. The issue was discussed at a meeting of the full City of Edinburgh Council in June, when a move by Green Councillor Chas Booth along with Liberal Democrat, Jack Caldwell, brought the issue back onto the agenda.<\/p>\n The council agreed that the Transport Convener would write to the government asking them to find financial support for part of the project \u2013 and crucially to assist in negotiations.<\/p>\n Speaking to The Edinburgh Reporter on Friday, Cllr Jenkinson said: \u201cThis project could be an easy win for all parties and a major bonus for people living in the area. The Campaign Powderhall.Link has done a great deal of work to advance the issue, and now it is time to get round the table and make it happen.\u201d <\/p>\n The ownership and leasing structure of the land along the line is complex, and may take some unravelling. There is a long-term lease understood to be held by a German cargo company over part of the line, complicating any deal despite a willingness from Network Rail to sell.<\/p>\n DB Cargo used to run trains on the line to deliver waste to the old Powderhall Waste Transfer Station for the council, but it exhausted its commercial usefulness with the closure of the transfer station in 2016.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Powderhall.Link<\/a> said after June\u2019s council meeting: \u201cIt will be interesting to see how the Scottish Government reacts. It may be some time before CEC is in any position to ask for\u00a0money\u00a0(no detailed plans can be progressed until ownership \u2013 or a lease \u2013 is in place.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s now reasonable to expect SG to deal directly with Network Rail to understand (and sort out) the reasons why the Council and NR have been \u2018negotiating\u2019 for around 10 years without any apparent progress!\u201d<\/p>\n Letter to the Transport Secretary<\/p>\n The Convener has said in his letter that he would like to know the nature of The Scottish Government\u2019s proposed support and \u201cSpecifically, I seek clarification on whether the Scottish Government intends to engage with the Council and Network Rail during ongoing negotiations regarding the transfer of the former railway line, and if it will provide assistance to facilitate the next stages required to progress the project.\u201d <\/p>\n The SNP said in their manifesto that they would \u201csupport efforts to bring the Powderhall railway line into use as a new walking and cycling route in the capital\u201d.<\/p>\n A feasibility study<\/a> conducted by Jacobs in 2023 shows that the costs of converting the line into a space for people to use could be as much as \u00a38.4 million, including infrastructure works.<\/p>\n Andy Arthur and Chris Hill, active travel campaigners, set up the\u00a0Powderhall.Link\u00a0website<\/a> to \u201cencourage a future for the former railway line to Powderhall\u201d, and\u00a0timed an FOI request<\/a> earlier this year- and the renewal of the campaign \u2013 to mark the 40th anniversary of the completion of a section of the North Edinburgh Paths at Pilton.<\/p>\n The Pilton Path was reclaimed from the trackbed of an old railway by\u00a0a grassroots \u201cslightly anarchic\u201d team of volunteers<\/a> in under a week. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edinburgh\u2019s Transport Convener is taking a grip of an active travel project in Edinburgh which has been dormant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1135764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4154,4155,4884,712,105470,292427,71422,16,15],"class_list":["post-1135763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edinburgh","tag-britain","tag-edinburgh","tag-edinburgh-local-news","tag-edinburgh-news","tag-great-britain","tag-scotland","tag-stephen-flynn","tag-stephen-jenkinson","tag-the-scottish-government","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117054074959460799","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1135763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1135763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1135764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1135763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1135763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1135763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/crin8921.jpeg\")
Cllr Stephen Jenkinson, Transport Convener<\/p>\n![\"Loader\"\/](\"https:\/\/theedinburghreporter.co.uk\/wp-content\/plugins\/embed-any-document\/images\/loading.svg\")
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Powderhall Link PHOTO Ross Chalmers
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