Edinburgh roads: Campaigners still oppose Corstorphine low traffic neighbourhood after removal of bus gate

Edinburgh councillors voted on Thursday to take away the bus gate which banned all traffic except buses, cycles and taxis from turning out of Manse Road onto St John’s Road at peak times. But they agreed the rest of the Corstorphine Connections low traffic neighbourhood (LTN) would be made permanent. 

The bus gate on Manse Road was the most controversial aspect of Corstorphine's low traffic neighbourhood scheme. | Supplied

The Accessible Corstorphine for Everyone (ACE) group said it welcomed the decision to scrap the bus gate, but was still critical of the scheme as a whole.

David Lowe said: "We're happy they've got rid of the bus gate. However, we're not convinced that's enough. There are other streets that have been closed off that people are not happy about. We will continue to look at it and see if we can do any more."

ACE has previously said it was seeking a legal opinion on the scheme and has raised money for that purpose.

Mr Lowe said: "We'll certainly go ahead with the opinion, we'll have to wait and see what that opinion says.

"The biggest bone of contention was the Manse Road bus gate. But a lot of the other things are not liked either."

He said no-one was suggesting reversing the widened pavements which were part of the scheme. "But some of the other road closures are still an issue and a lot of people are complaining about the street clutter as well - bollards and so on.

“While ACE welcomes today's decision to remove the Manse Road bus gate as an acknowledgment of the LTN's failure to deliver its promised benefits, we continue to oppose the remaining LTN measures.”

Officials had recommended the LTN, including the bus gate, should be made permanent. And Margaret Graham, convener of the council’s new Traffic Regulation Order(TRO) sub-committee, proposed that move, but an amendment put forward by Lib Dem councillor Neil Ross to remove the bus gate was passed by 6 votes to 3.

Mr Lowe said: “We are pleased that members of the TRO sub-committee have recognised what we have long known: the council's handling of the trial LTN has been woefully inept, using misleading data to justify an unwanted scheme.

“Despite overwhelming opposition from the community in multiple surveys, the council ignored these voices, instead relying on limited market research to falsely portray support. The larger, more representative surveys were disregarded, effectively silencing the broader community and undermining the democratic consultation process.”

And he highlighted comments at the meeting by SNP councillor Marco Biagi, who applied his experience of commissioning market research to rubbish the methods used to produce the findings. He told fellow councillors that in reaching a view on what should happen he was “setting aside in its entirety the evidential value of the market research as I do not think the claims can stand up to analysis”.

Monitoring of traffic levels during the 18-month trial of the LTN found a 9.2 per cent drop in traffic near Corstorphine Primary School at peak periods, but an overall increase in traffic in the wider area of 6.5 per cent - higher than the city-wide rise in traffic. 

Transport convener Stephen Jenkinson, who does not sit on the TRO sub-committee, said he believed the right decision had been made and argued the low traffic neighbourhood was still “a worthwhile exercise” without the bus gate.

He said: "The bus gate has been the controversial bit. Everyone has focused on that, not on the wider benefits of the scheme, which I think have been very good.”