Tag Archives: Cycling

Leith Walk repairs – LCCC’s position

This paper shows the position Leith Central Community Council adopted on 20 January 2014. The yellow highlights show amendments to the original agreed at the meeting.

The main points are:

LCCC agrees that the highest priority for Leith Walk is the speedy implementation of physical improvement measures, fixing the serious deterioration of the public realm since 2007. In particular, LCCC agrees to pursue implementation of measures with a design life of 7-15 years in the following order of priority:

  1. for Pilrig Street to Picardy Place and Foot of the Walk -­ the most heavily used sections of Leith Walk, implementation of immediate basic pedestrian measures starting at the northern end, reinstating pavements to what was there before tram works/MUDFA disruption ­ same materials, same layout and requiring no immediate new TRO, and using simplified procurement procedures and (some of) the £3.2m budget initially approved in 2011. This initial work should also include routine patching of potholes (from ordinary repair budget) and renewal of yellow lines.
  2. for Crowne Place to Iona Street, approval of present TRO and subsequent speedy implementation ­ despite possible design shortcomings, followed by a review in light of first 12 months experience, in particular the option of locating a number of communal bins in suitable side streets.
  3. using projected remaining funds and coordinated with implementation of recommendation 2a (accepting minor duplication of work), create a more ambitious design for Pilrig Street to Picardy Place and Foot of the Walk that meets the Scottish Government funding criteria and benefits in the first instance local residents, particularly pedestrians, then public transport and cyclists, then retailers and visitors to Leith Walk and finally road users who are passing through.

Leith Central CC draft minutes, 20 January 2013

Here are draft minutes from the meeting of 20 January 2014: 2014_01_20 draft

Topics discussed include:

  • Potential Lidl store at 248 Easter Road
  • Leith Walk repairs – see discussion paper on pages 5-7 of the minutes.

An updated version of the paper on Leith Walk repairs will be in the following post.

Leith Walk renovations must start as soon as possible

A recent Leith Central Community Council meeting became quite heated when Leith Walk renovations came up for discussion. In no uncertain way several members expressed their displeasure with the lack of progress, with some going as far as to say that they ‘had lost trust in Edinburgh Council’. This provoked many comments on social media, e.g. the Broughton Spurtle, a petition against the reduction of parking started by a number of local traders and Greener Leith.

Considering it is now nearly 8 years that Leith Walk since been on the receiving end of tram works, it is understandable that people are losing patience. Businesses on Leith Walk are suffering, pedestrians and cyclists are dodging potholes. It is evident that the current state of the road prevents the local economy from thriving and deters tourists from venturing beyond Elm Row. In contrast it is particularly galling to see that in other areas of Edinburgh where the trams will actually run, top quality heritage materials are being installed. No wonder that in some quarters it is said that the current state of Leith Walk would simply not have been tolerated elsewhere in the City Centre.

Having said that, a brief history of the tram works on Leith Walk shows that current council officers in charge of the project have only relatively recently become involved; on 31st July 2012 the Leith and Central Neighbourhood Partnership was tasked with taking care of the tramworks shambles and implementing the Leith Walk Improvement Programme. A budget of £1.5m was allocated, to be spent almost entirely on a new road surface. This option would have been relatively quick and cheap but would have produced a traffic artery rather than a new heart for the community.

Picking up on local grumbling about the lack of a better plan, a campaign was launched on the 6th of January 2013 to do more and make Leith Walk a safe pedestrian/cycling route. Once responses from some 450 individuals and 11 local organisations – including contributions from all Leith community councils – were collated, this provided Edinburgh Council with all the right arguments to ask central government for more money. And although these negotiations have delayed the project by about 6 months – about which everyone was warned by council officers – there is now a budget of £9.1m to renovate Leith Walk.

The scheme will see improvements to the pedestrian environment, more pedestrian crossings, wider pavements, better lighting and improved trade waste arrangements. Cyclists too will get safer routes and hopefully business will thrive once again. It has not been easy, there are opposing ideas about what should be done, but there has been progress. The first tranche of the works, Constitution Street and Bernard Street junction, was completed on 18th of November and the renovation of the northern-most part of Leith Walk is due to start in the next few months. Clarity about these coming road works, however, is at the centre of the current dispute. Some traders believe that they have not been sufficiently informed about the number of parking places that will be lost to waste storage and cycle lanes – even with consultation outcomes in favour of these measures -, others feel that the works are simply progressing too slowly. In addition, even with regular stakeholder meetings with the Council, exact factual information such as technical specifications, transparency on decisions and precise construction dates have been hard to come by, despite LCCC’s repeated requests.

There can however be no doubt that everyone involved wants the project to be successful and finish as soon as possible. It also has generally been recognised that the only way forward is to keep soldiering on. LCCC, however, would like to see a few improvements to the current reporting of the stakeholder meetings*:

  1. Prepare and publish agendas well in advance
  2. Make audio recordings of the meetings.
  3. Publish minutes of the meetings.

LCCC believes that in this way there can be no argument over who said what, so that all can concentrate on the tasks in hand. No doubt there will be more frustration with the coming road closures as construction takes place, but it is in everyone’s interest that this project is completed as soon as possible so that Leith Walk can flourish again.

There is still time to express your views on whether wheelie bins should be permanently moved to parking spaces.  This will increase pedestrian access and reduce clutter on the pavements and reduce the number of parking spaces by a total of 34.   There are currently no plans to regulate parking on Leith Walk beyond the ‘Greenways’  parking scheme.  This is detailed in Draft Traffic Order Regulations for Leith Walk  on which you can comment until 6th of January 2014. Details on how to do this can be found here. A draft TRO gives information on proposed changes in traffic management or parking controls. They also describe who can use a road or even just a part of it. Edinburgh Council use them to place restrictions such as yellow lines, parking places or bus lanes.

*The stakeholder meetings  are attended by local councilors, council officers, reps from Leith Central CC, Leith Links CC, Leith Business Association, the Federation of Small Businesses and Greener Leith.