Gathering storm - 'More light is needed on murky affair'

Today's report into 2009's The Gathering raises serious questions about the city council's role in the affair - and in particular the shambles that followed its financial collapse.

In hard-hitting language that demands answers at the highest levels in the City Chambers, Holyrood's audit committee says the evidence it received from senior councillors and officials was "not credible".

And while much of the criticism surrounds the way that a press release was approved and issued which suggested the council-funded Destination Edinburgh Marketing Alliance (DEMA) would take over the firm behind the Gathering, this is no trivial matter about paperwork.

On the contrary, whether or not DEMA would take over The Gathering 2009 Ltd was key to whether or not more than 100 firms would get their share of more than 700,000 the company owed when it went bust after the event lost money.

A dozen local firms are now threatening to sue for 100,000 after the council refused to help - indeed, in a bizarre move which has yet to be fully explained, the only payment the city has made was 5647 given to multinational giant Portakabin.

But that is just one question among many over this shambles. These include why the SNP Government - whose idea the event was - didn't step in to help, or indeed if it tried to bounce the council into a DEMA takeover so that future Gatherings could take place.

The Scottish Parliament's audit committee today says the council needs to investigate its own contradictory evidence and its procedures.

We agree that more light needs to be shone on this murky affair - we just hope that local firms which are owed money don't go bust waiting for some answers.

Sense on school

Building work should finally get under way later this year on a new Portobello High School - but some locals are not happy.

Their efforts to prevent the school being built on a large chunk of Portobello Park finally failed yesterday.

Opponents argued strongly that the park is a treasured local amenity, and as a society we do need to jealously guard against unwarranted intrusion into what seems to be ever-diminishing urban green space.

But the more compelling argument was that taking some of the park to create a bigger and more modern school for the area's youngsters was a good use of the land for wider community benefit.

And anyone who heard the teachers and pupils of the current cramped school make that arguments would surely agree that the right decision was taken.