The problem with council-led consultations is they are designed to support the desired pre-determined answer, not an opportunity for the authority to hear a few home truths.
The tram consultation does not consider if spending billions on new lines is a bad idea, and so it is with another public relations exercise approved this week, into where a safe drug consumption room should be sited in Edinburgh, not if.
The report to this week’s Integration Joint Board, which oversees NHS and Edinburgh City Council health and social care services – and needs to save £12.7 million to balance its books – says the cost will be “substantial” but can’t provide an estimate despite the same facility in Glasgow being open for eight months.
But they do know where it should be, in the Old Town, so encouraging more people with chaotic lifestyles to head into the World Heritage site to mingle with the tourists. The consultation is just an expensive information gathering exercise to decide which corner on the Cowgate or Spittal Street it will be on.
Loitering addicts and discarded needles are common complaints around the Glasgow centre, and there is no reason to think Edinburgh’s version will be any different. The inescapable truth is the SNP Scottish Government’s priorities are all wrong, presiding over Europe’s worst drugs death toll, but spending unknown amounts of public money on something to make it easier for addicts to stay hooked. What they need is rehab to get them off drugs, not the means to keep them in a stupor.
