The historic Port of Leith opened its doors to the local community again at the weekend as part of the Leith Jazz and Blues Festival, which Forth Ports is a proud sponsor. The popular bus tours gave people a chance to hop onto a vintage bus for a tour of the busy port where the team told the past, present and future story of the port.

In addition to the bus tours, and for the first time this year, the port also welcomed the community into the Leith Cruise Terminal where people were able to see some of the specialist port equipment and volunteers from the HM Coastguard were also on site to demonstrate lifesaving skills and lifebuoy safely which is important as we see warmer weather. During the demo, people of all ages got the chance to test their aim with a Safety Duck challenge and learn more about staying safe around water.

The bus tours and other events were organised and run by some of the people working for Forth Ports who were thrilled to be able to show all of the activities that goes on behind the port gates. The Open Day also included community and local organisation and charity stalls including Balanced Horizon, Forth Ports charity partner for the Big Forth Clean Up from 28-30^th August*, St Columba’s Hospice, Andy’s Man Club and Edinburgh Shoreline. Complementary ice cream proved popular and was provided by The Little Parlour.

Chris Monteith, Asset Manager of the Port of Leith said: “The local community is always interested in the activities at the Port of Leith and we wanted to do something a bit different this year to build on the success of the annual bus tours. My thanks to the local community groups, charities and businesses who came along and also the HM coastguard volunteers for an invaluable awareness raising demo on the importance of being safe around the water. We all enjoyed showing the community behind the scenes of our busy port with our events team and volunteers doing a great job hosting the day. We look forward to doing it all again next year.”