Mark Cummings - Invicta PR latest

From The Sunday Times by Jason Allardyce August 9, 2009

Labour candidate ‘was sent sectarian messages’

Lothian and Borders police are studying offensive text messages received by Dunfermline and West Fife candidate Thomas Docherty


Police are investigating allegations that a Scottish Labour candidate was subjected to sectarian abuse by text message.

Lothian and Borders police are studying text messages received by Thomas Docherty, who will contest Dunfermline and West Fife in the general election.
The messages, which contained a lyric from the so-called Famine song, were allegedly sent from a mobile telephone number belonging to Mark Cummings, a lobbyist. His clients have included Premier Property Group, a firm owned by David Murray, the Rangers chairman.

Two weeks ago, Docherty, a Catholic, received a message repeating a line from the Famine song which has been banned at Rangers’ Ibrox ground, and which was recently ruled by Scottish law lords to be racist. The song pillories people of Irish descent whose ancestors came to Britain to escape the potato famine which began in 1845.

The message to Docherty allegedly read: “The famine is over. Why don’t you go home? FTP.” FTP is commonly used as an abbreviation for the sectarian phrase F*** The Pope.

It is alleged that when Docherty texted the sender to check whether the message was intended for him, he received the reply: “Yes, because you are one of them.”

As a Labour candidate, Docherty is campaigning against a proposed major housing development in Dunfermline which Cummings’s firm, Edinburgh-based Invicta Public Affairs, is lobbying for.

In a statement, Cummings, director of Invicta, said: “I am aware of the matter as it has been brought to my attention. I am responding properly on a voluntary basis with the relevant authorities.

“This is a private matter that relates to me in a personal capacity only. It in no way relates to any commercial relationships that I have.”

A police spokesman said: “Police are investigating after a 34-year-old male received an offensive text message of sectarian nature.”

Docherty was unavailable for comment.

Mark Cummings pictured above with former client Manish Chande of Caltongate's Mountgrange.

Here is a bit of history on this man known throughout the country for his pr for developments on the whole unwanted by communities -

In Nairn he is well known see here

He worked with PPS who were the PR Company behind Developers Mountgrange (Caltongate) also Viridor Waste at Portobello.

The company`s motto is - "Call PPS if ...you need to undertake community consultation or if you feel your scheme may run into political or community opposition." hotlinehere

They featured in The Evening Standard in July 2007 in an article titled "Bugging, Bullying, Forgery: Property PR Tricks" EveningStandard30thjuly2007

See Dispatches Programme aired on Monday 30th July 2007 Scroll down page to find link to programme (PPS part starts at 16 minutes 50 seconds to 25 minutes 24 seconds) although all of programme worth watching!) On the 6th August 2007 another story concerning Mountgrange`s PR company PPS was published in EveningStandardaug07

In Private Eye issue no. 1192 31st August 2007 are Caltongate developers Mountgrange and their PR lobbying firm PPS to read article select your print preview and enlarge to 100% see here

"Mark Cummings the Scottish Director of PPS and Mountgrange`s spokesperson for the last two years or so left the company, 2 weeks after the Private Eye story was published in August. Now it appears he is still working for Mountgrange just under his new company name “Invicata”"

"Mark Cummings, the spin doctor who left controversial lobbying firm PPS this autumn, has landed a contract with PPS’s most high profile client in Scotland. Cummings worked on the Caltongate development account for PPS, but despite his departure was spotted at a meeting of the Caltongate Liaison Group last week. His new firm, Invicta Public Affairs, has now been taken on by Caltongate’s developer Manish Chande for what Cummings describes as “PR and public affairs, all the usual stuff”. Chande’s firm Mountgrange is expected to retain PPS’s services despite giving Invicta some work on the project." SOSarticle

Bye Bye Mountgrange

Lots of news about the Caltongate site!!! Hardly news really, but Mountgrange have decided not to return to the Waverley valley that they helped "uglify" by being the catalyst to emptying out the council homes and Canongate Venture and worst still knocking down the bus garage to create a gap site.

Oh and we are getting a Tsar for the World Heritage Site, what we actrually need is the planners and officials to follow their own policies and guidelines and take a common sense approach.

Capital to get tsar for world heritage site Edinburgh Evening News - Edinburgh,Scotland,UK Unesco called for reviews into two controversial schemes that had previously been approved – Haymarket and Caltongate, which includes a 17-storey hotel. ...

Ex-Caltongate owner officially rules out developing on site Scotsman - Edinburgh,Scotland,UK By MICHAEL BLACKLEY THE former owner of Caltongate has formally dropped its interest in the site – but insisted it still wants to invest in Edinburgh. ...

C

Kashgar's endager Old Town

Was reading the Guardian yesterday ad found this interesting article about the Old Town of Kashgar in China. About to be wiped out by a £300 million development. Where have we heard that before? £300 million to destroy the heritage on an Old Town. Kashgar is an old ancient city on the Silk Road from China to the West- you would find it to the very west of China, north of Tibet. Here lives China's Uighur population, the majority who are Muslims.

The Kashgar streets were used in the film Kite Runner to depict the streets of 70s Kabul.

Whilst the article is interesting my beef with it is not about preserving the Old Town of Kashgar for the Uigur people and for its historical contribution but so tourists can go see it.

Unfortunately the people of Kashgar probably won't be able to set up a Save Our Old Town campaign as such a campaign would probably banned in China.

To view a video about Kashgar the link is here

To read the article in the Guardian the link is here

Old Town Development Trust Meeting 26th August 7.30pm

Old Town Development Trust Meeting 26th August 2009 7.30pm

Invitation to the 5th Meeting on setting up an Old Town Development Trust

Wednesday 26^th August 7.30 – 9pm.

Blackfriars Community Rooms, Coinyie-House Close, Edinburgh EH1 1NL

see map

Last year SOOT carried out The Canongate Project, 6 weeks of community consultation and action research, funded by Scottish Communities. You can find the report and findings on our website http://www.eh8.org.uk/

During the project Wendy Reid of Development Trusts Association Scotland, presented two workshops about how communities can take control of their assets and be involved in community development. Wendy was invited back in April this year to explain more about setting up such a trust in the Old Town. http://www.dtascot.org.uk/

When we launched our report on the project in February this year, at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, Pauline Gallacher from the Neilston Development Trust gave a presentation on the work they have been doing in Renfrewshire. http://www.neilstontrust.co.uk/index.php

At our AGM on the 20th May this year we agreed the following motion -

“Save Our Old Town (SOOT) supports the setting up of a Old Town Development Trust. SOOT will be pro-actively contacting other groups, organisations and individuals in the Old Town to start discussions. SOOT will host a meeting for mid-June to facilitate this discussion. Over the summer there can be constructive discussions about an Old Town Development Trust. If there is a feeling and commitment to set up a development trust there will be a meeting in the Autumn to set up the Trust.”

There are many buildings that are empty, under used or in disrepair, there is a dire need for housing, particularly family sized. Public events happen in the area, but often the people of the Old Town are not consulted or even considered. We are proud of the Old Town and appreciate it qualities but are also very aware that it could be improved upon, but without the need for garish new developments and demolitions and can see that it is stewardship in hand with community led incremental small developments that is sorely needed. This is where a development trust or trusts can be helpful.

“Development trusts offer a fresh approach to community regeneration. Independent and under community control, these organisations draw together the energy, commitment and creativity of local people to tackle local issues. Through enterprise and the ownership of local assets, development trusts address the economic, social, cultural and environmental needs of their communities.” - Development Trusts Association Scotland

The SOOT Gathering

We've been having a summer break here in the republic, but we are back to have some fun..

SOOTGathering

Sunday 26th July

Old St Paul's Church Hall,Jeffrey Street
click here on how to find Old Saint Pauls

Live music from

Jacobs Pillow
(celtic roots/rock/jazz)
Missing Cat
(Blues/rock/psychedelic)
The Asps
(Rock/blues)
Bonnie and Clyde
(Acoustic rock)
Ross Galloway
( acoustic folk)
Plus more to be added

..and there are rumours that the Ceilidh Master

may make an appearance!

Doors at 7:30pm
£3 on the door

BRING YOUR OWN BOTTLE

food & refreshments available

Life behind the Haymarket Hotel Saga

In this weeks Scotsman the people who have openly opposed the Haymarket Hotel were given an opportunity to talk about their experience.

We applaud them and know that the cost of speaking out can sometimes be unpleasant, but rewarding at the same time. Don`t give up...

What local residents think -

Wearying process that can eat up your time – and your money

THIS year, I spent my two-week summer holiday at the Holiday Inn next to Edinburgh Zoo – despite living in the capital's Dalry Colonies, near Haymarket.

I was there because, for the past two and a half years, I have been heavily involved in the Haymarket planning saga.

The Holiday Inn was hosting a public inquiry, but the residents' association very much felt like Cinderella going to the ball

Those of us who opposed the development but who couldn't afford a planning consultant or legal counsel had to spend a lot of money and time preparing for the inquiry in Edinburgh's Central Library, reading and photocopying. Electronic copies were not available to us, unfortunately.

At the Holiday Inn, we watched sandwiches (paid for on expenses) being delivered to the main parties, while we sneaked in our own (highly illegal) sandwiches to avoid the expensive hotel lunches and brought in our own drinks.

To add insult to injury, we also had to pay to print and post copies of the evidence we submitted to the inquiry (e-mail was not sufficient) and we did not have any administrators to do it for us or any company-supplied photocopiers to use.

We are now an organisation even more financially challenged than before as a result of this development, and I almost had to resort to begging at our AGM in April for residents' donations to keep us sufficiently afloat to allow us to continue to print newsletters.

If you ever get involved in one of these planning sagas yourself, then I hope you are rich and well-connected.

It would have been easy to be beaten down by what turned out to be a two-and-a-half- year-long, drawn-out process, but you do have to wonder whether that is what developers of sites such as this rely on: members of the public falling by the wayside because they assume that the system is against them and that they don't have the time (or money!) to be or stay involved.

• Maria Kelly is chairwoman of the Dalry Colonies Residents' Association.

Scotsman 29 June 09

What architect Richard Murphy thinks here

Pensioners at the heart of hotel protests

PENSIONERS Agnes and Donald Dick, who live in the Dalry Colonies near Haymarket train station in Edinburgh, hardly fit the profile of 21st-century urban campaigners.

They describe themselves as "old school" and don't own a computer or mobile phone. They prefer quiet evenings at home in the house where Mr Dick was born. Mr Dick, 76, a keen Hearts supporter, likes watching war videos such as The Longest Day while his wife enjoys romantic wartime fiction.

But their cosy upstairs home has become the beating heart of a campaign to prevent Tiger Developments building a "landmark", 17-storey hotel, part of a £200 million project on the edge of the city's World Heritage Site.

Like younger campaigners, the couple say they are not against the site being developed, but they argue that it is out of scale with the surrounding area.

The couple's biggest weapons against the developers are their memories of the Dalry Colonies and a way of life they have perpetuated and which has galvanised younger campaigners used to a faster, but more impersonal, way of life.

Mr Dick keeps campaigners invigorated with stories of his childhood. Typical tales include him helping Tynecastle Homing Club take racing pigeons in baskets to Haymarket station to be released by station masters along the route at places such as Riccarton and Penrith. "I used to love race days," he says. "We'd sit with our tins of maize on a Saturday afternoon at the dovecot just up the road, rattling the tins to get the pigeons to come down to get clocked in. There was great excitement once when a strange pigeon flew in."

His wife says: "We feel that, at our age, there's not a lot we can do about the hotel. But we're worried if the hotel goes ahead the street will get a lot busier with cars and the hotel will overlook us.

"The hotel is far too high – it's as if the rest of us don't exist. The Hearts clock which sits in the middle of Haymarket has been our landmark and we don't need anything else."

She says that despite more "new people" moving to the colonies, the community is a peaceful haven in the city, both for them and for the pensioners in the nearby Fraser Court sheltered housing complex.

"It's so quiet here it's like being in the country," she says. "When you're walking you can hear the birds chirping and you rarely hear traffic. Going to the shops takes half an hour because people want to stop and chat."

Scotsman 29 June 09

Edinburgh thanks UNESCO

What a week it has been so far with everyone getting their tuppence worth in about Unesco had to say about how we here in the capital are looking after our piece of heritage for future generations of the world. Well I think if we are not to be laughed at or pitied then really we should agree that we have is worth cherishing and not to throw it under a bulldozer on the whims of a greedy speculator in what ever era we are living in, or at under the so called justification warcrys of "Progress" or "Money, money , money" "jobs, jobs, jobs"

We are all just passing through, visiting the earth and her wonders, whether human made or natural.

Thank you Unesco for having a voice for humankind, especially the little people..Edinburgh thanks you and future generations will do too.


Scotsman Piece here

Unesco deals blow to World Heritage Site development plans for Edinburgh

From the piece -"Its annual heritage summit in Seville has passed strongly-worded resolutions urging the City of Edinburgh Council and the Scottish Government to scale back plans for a 17-storey hotel at Haymarket and redraw a £300 million Old Town scheme."

Someone had painted this on the hoardingsof New St Site Nov 08 for visiting Unesco delegation to see

Read here what the pro development lobby are saying

The Canongate Macrae Tenements that were to be demolished for the project

and heres what Wilsons Weekly Wrap made of it all
So far the Scottish government has responded by saying that Unesco’s recommendations will be taken into account in the final planning inquiry decision, the developer has effectively said, bugger off, and Gordon Murray of gm + ad has exploded with rage at the very idea of any (external) body interfering with the right of (external) developers to completely knacker our cities in the name of mammon. Indeed Gordon has got himself into such a froth in the AJ’s daily bulletin as to lump Unesco, Prince Charles, the City of Bath Council into a huge conspiracy against local democratic processes.

The best bit of the tirade is when he cites Historic Scotland, the National Trust and the Royal Commission of Ancient and Historic Monuments as the agencies that provide us with the intellectual basis from which to appraise our own heritage, his point being, I think, that we don’t need Johnny Foreigner lecturing us on the value of our culture.

Haymarket Horror Hotel

Just a pity that none of the agencies he lists has ever been known to demonstrate any democratic instincts whatsoever. But then, Gordon appears to see the purpose of World Heritage Site status as an enhancer of tourism, a viewpoint the City of Edinburgh Council has certainly taken in the past, not having bothered to read the bit of the Unesco citation that conferred responsibility upon it for the future protection of the capital’s Old and New Towns. Time, lads to read the small print of the contract."