Street Audits for City of Edinburgh Council

The contract, jointly with Transform Scotland, to conduct 5 street audits for CEC, was completed, with illustrated individual reports for each street audit and an overall summary report all submitted. These were favourably received by CEC staff, but follow up has been disappointingly limited, and LSS / Transform Scotland have not been permitted to publish the reports.

Street Audit in Dunbar

The audit conducted last year focussed on routes to Dunbar Primary school. An illustrated report was submitted and discussed at a meeting in the school, attended by school, local authority and local community representatives. It is available here.

Awards for All Project

The Awards for All project was successfully completed.

Meeting with Transport Minister

LSS representatives (Sandy Cook, JR and DL) met with the Transport Minister, Tavish Scott, in April, and discussed a range of issues, from SE walking policies, through needs for funding, guidance and training for local authorities, and for legislation. The minister's responses were disappointing for the most part, with the exception of possible support for legislation to enable local authorities to deal with parking abuses, including pavement parking.

Submissions to Scottish Executive (SE)

LSS submitted a response to proposals to establish a Public Transport Users Committee (PTUC) for Scotland, seeking to ensure that the vital links between the pedestrian environment and public transport are taken into account in any new arrangements for a PTUC.

We have also taken part in workshops and prepared a draft submission in response to the consultation version of the National Transport Strategy (NTS). The finalised response is to be submitted in July. A response is also being made to an SE consultation on Architectural Policy in Scotland.

Proposals to give local authorities powers over pavement parking etc have been developed and submitted to key SE officials and relevant local government staff.

Submissions to CEC

Responses were submitted in response to the draft Walking Strategy for Edinburgh, and to the draft revision of CEC's Parking Strategy.

A detailed response was also made to the consultation draft 'Edinburgh Standards for Streets', which is intended to provide more comprehensive design guidance for use throughout the city.

Website / Newsletter

The website has been improved and a regular electronic newsletter is now produced, thanks to the efforts of Morag Haddow.

Other activities

In Edinburgh pressure has been maintained on CEC over streetscape cleansing and management issues. A meeting has been sought with Andrew Burns to review progress more generally, in the context of both the rejection of road user charging and the forthcoming update of the Local Transport Strategy.

The Secretary and other LSS members have attended meetings of Transform Scotland, and the Scottish Council of Accident Prevention (SAPC). Comments are being submitted to SAPC to influence the SAPC response to the draft NTS. The Secretary has also participated in workshop inputs to the Child Safety Plan for Scotland (organised through SAPC), and the SESTRANS Regional Transport Strategy for SE Scotland.

Representation was sought on the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland without success, but we are seeking to establish closer links with the work of this Committee, given the correspondence of our interests in the pedestrian environment and the importance of its work, especially now that the scope of the Disability Discrimination Act has been extended to cover local authority services.

There have been contacts with a number of MSPs but still too limited an engagement with the political process in the Scottish Parliament over the past year, and we now need to develop better networks of communication and closer involvements at these levels.

There has also been, as usual, interactions with / responses to a range of individuals, organisations, media, and other local authorities over a number of issues. These include for example East Lothian Council in relation to its new home zones oriented residential design guidance.