The Council are proposing to create a quiet route from the Meadows to Greenbank. As part of Greenbank to Meadows it is also proposed to introduce two road closures on Whitehouse Loan. One immediately south of Strathearn Road, the other immediately south of Bruntsfield Crescent. These closures will enable safer cycling on Whitehouse Loan and reflect proposals which have been put forward by local community group ‘Blackford Safer Streets’.

The proposals:

• open up a route to walking, wheeling and cycling by reducing motor traffic to “local access only” along the Whitehouse Loan, Canaan Lane and Braid Avenue corridor
• through-motor-traffic (rat-running) is removed from most of the streets along the route by means of planters and bollards, forming strategic closures to through-motor-traffic
• access to all properties by car is retained
• the route forms an important connection between the new segregated cycle lanes on Comiston Rd and the offroad cycle network at the Meadows
• the route forms an important route to and from the local schools in the area

You can see more here: http://blackfordsaferoutes.co.uk/

However as we know with previous schemes the Council did not do any proper consultation and that has undermined them in the eyes of the public and scheme proposers.

To that end Daniel Johnson MSP, Cllrs Mandy Watt and myself have created a survey which we will feed into the review of the Spaces for People programme in November.

You can take the survey here.

Background:

At the start of the pandemic the Scottish Government gave local authorities in Scotland £10m to support pop up, temporary active travel measures. The intention was to make make it easier for people to walk and cycle, as well as giving people more space to exercise. The advice issued was also to circumvent the usual TRO process (18 months) by using a Temporary TRO, resulting in no consultation.

Although the Council did perform limited consultation on Bruntsfield Place/Morningside Rd/Comiston Rd it was not nearly satisfactory. As a result we have seen many mistakes made and attempts by residents and shop owners to engage the council rebuffed. It is therefore essential that local people can be made aware of the proposals and the council are presented with ideas, views and comments from local residents in order to ensure the goals of the scheme are met with buy in from all stakeholders and residents.