Sporting champions: 'The starting point should be PE in schools'

Published on Friday 13 November 2009 09:08

AMBITION is something which should always be encouraged, sporting and otherwise. So we applaud the plan to recruit sports stars and other prominent and well-kent figures as activity ambassadors for the city.

Some might mock the aspiration to make Edinburgh the most physically active European city within ten years. For starters, how will we know?

But by setting the bar high it is to be hoped that overall fitness levels will rise among all social types and ages, and especially younger people. This is the best way to tackle the growing problem of obesity.

Which is why the starting point should be addressing the dearth of PE available in schools.

Primary school kids in the city get on average just 97 minutes a week, with secondary pupils doing just five minutes better.

That is well short of the Scottish Government target of two hours, and parents have been warned that it will take years to get anywhere near meeting that figure.

Frankly even two hours isn't enough, given that PE classes in schools will be the only physical exercise some kids get. As well as introducing them to sport, it also helps foster the concept of working as a team and reaching for goals.

So let's sort that out as well as asking local heroes Sir Chris Hoy and David Florence to lend their support.

On the brink

FEARS are growing for EDI, the part-public development group responsible for the regeneration of Craigmillar.

The city council stepped in months ago with a 60 million-plus bail out of EDI, together with Parc Craigmillar and Waterfront Edinburgh Limited.

But as the News reveals today, the bailout has stalled in a harsh economic climate in which the value of the developers' assets has fallen massively. EDI's alone have shrunk by more than half and it is entirely reliant on the support of its bankers for survival.

The council hopes it still has time to turn things around but Lloyds – owed 51m – rejected the council's bailout plan earlier this month. It has been persuaded to reconsider but still holds the fate of EDI in its grasp.

Given the tougher line that is increasingly being taken by banks these days, there has to be a real chance that it will call in its loans – in which case EDI will collapse.

But given that Lloyds itself has been bailed out with taxpayers' billions, it will face a popular backlash in Edinburgh if it does.