Meeting with Council – 13 Nov 25 – Corstorphine in Bloom

The Corstorphine and Clermiston community council chair, Friends of St Margaret’s Park chair and the City of Edinburgh Greenspaces Development Officer met. The council officer has done a great job and made lots of progress.

In Aberdeen they have a similar scheme. See https://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/services/leisure-culture-and-parks/sponsored-floral-displays and this may be a model.

Points discussed

1. Hanging basket permissions – no specific permissions are needed for hanging baskets and each business is free to install.

2. Planter permissions – Dave Sinclair, Head of Network Operations was consulted. There would need to be a street survey of potential locations. The type of planter is a factor as some have rotted away. Location is important to make sure not blocking utility covers. Planters should be 450 mm from kerbs and doorways. The Greenspaces team previously gave us this Pathway to Install Planters and Hanging Baskets (council draft). There may be benefit in having a consistent type of planter. Good to inform the road works commissioner in case of road works

3. What council can provide maybe at cost – planters, soil, flowers, expertise? Janice from Inch nursery will be consulted as will Linda who heads up the Greenspaces team.

4. Advertising according to normal standards – we will follow the City of Edinburgh guidance on advertising for Sponsorship Signs.

5. Public Liability insurance – we discussed various scenarios

Type of Friends Group	Structure	Can run independent events?	Insurance required	Where cover comes from
Informal group	None	❌ No	None, but supervised activities covered by Council	Council PLI ( if supervised)
Constituted group	Constitution + committee	✅ Yes	PLI	Group buys its own insurance
SCIO / Charity	Registered charity	✅ Yes	PLI, Employer,	Group buys its own insurance

Existing organisations public liability will cover planter work. Friends group reports that members have insurance outwith parks if part of the group.

Businesses will have their own insurance?

If families or individuals want to sponsor a planter then the thought is they do it through a business or friends group – they need to join the friends group.

We discussed what happens if someone trips over a watering can, breaks a leg and then can’t work. Who do they claim off for loss of earnings? We would have a health and safety briefing to hand out and everyone must acknowledge reading.

The council solicitor has been written to and is looking at this.

6. We agreed to meet and look at St John’s Road. A map with Google street view for 11 shopping areas is at Shopping Areas for Planters/Hanging Basket

7. We talked about benefits