Author Archives: minsec

20 mph zones – CEC wants your views

Adapted from an email from Edinburgh Council 20mph_Eflier

The Council’s Transport and Environment Committee has approved a draft network of 20, 30 and 40 mph roads as a basis for consultation and authorised a public consultation on extending the 20 mph speed limits to many roads in the city.

Whatever your views about the 20 mph speed limit proposals, Edinburgh Council wants to hear from you.  You can email your views to the address below or use the online consultation. Drop-in events, public meetings and exhibitions are also taking place across the city.

An interactive map of the draft proposals, a list of frequently asked questions and details of the engagement events are available on the Council’s website at www.edinburgh.gov.uk/20mph.

Please forward this email to any contacts that you feel would be interested in making their views heard on the proposals. The consultation is open until 17 October.

Eileen Hewitt I Professional Officer, 20mph Programme I Strategic Planning I Services for Communities I City of Edinburgh Council I C:2 Waverley Court, 4 East Market Street, Edinburgh, EH8 8BG I 0131 469 3502 I20mph@edinburgh.gov.uk

Click to download the 20mph leaflet

Edinburgh Planning Concordat Engagement Fund – very small uptake

Edinburgh Council’s Planning Committee agreed in August 2013 to provide small grants (around £300) to assist community councils in carrying out engagement on major applications*. Recently, the Planning Committee stated that it’s received only 2 applications for such grants. It has asked CCs:

  1. Is there a particular reason why you have not applied for grant assistance to engage with the wider community?
  2. Are there any changes to the rules which would make it easier for you to apply for assistance?
  3. Any other comments?

*As far as the author of this post is aware, the Edinburgh Planning Concordat is the framework for this assistance.

Leith Central CC’s planning subcommittee suggested the following reasons:

  • available funds are insignificant compared to developers’ resources
  • the timescales to deploy any funds are often very short: CCs who will often struggle to submit a considered response, don’t have time to think about applications at this point
  • unless a consultation can address all relevant households (efficiently and reliably), any quantitative results are statistically irrelevant (or even unreliable, as we can’t check the authenticity of individual responses); so we rely on old-fashioned qualitative methods – small numbers, but free
Of course, CEC could automatically pay a consultation grant to a CC (proportionate to scale of application) as a major application is being submitted (and the processing fee is collected).