Clean Up

Some of the crew from Portobello Central and Keep Porty Tidy at the Town Hall this morning giving the outside of the building a bit of a tidy, I think twenty bags of rubbish - most weeds, moss and leaves - were taken away in C's van. No doubt some people will say, 'the council should be doing that' but councils continue to be short of money and there are more important priorities, like social care and education. While we could all make political choices to support increased funding for councils (and I noticed that the Scottish Government has quietly removed the council tax freeze this week which has restricted local government finance for more than a decade), there are systemic problems caused by the extractive nature of neoliberal global capitalism. Rather than local businesses generating profits that are spent and taxed locally, too many businesses have shadowy and convoluted ownership patterns that suck profits out of communities and spirit them away, either to the other end of the country or to tax havens. However maybe there is a solution at a local level - use local volunteers to make communities better places to live. Small amounts of funding, either in grants or from local businesses, can be magnified by harnessing volunteers. And it isn't just altruism in volunteering - there is something very satisfying in doing your bit, with all sorts of physical and mental health benefits too.