Council consultations lack meaning, if you read between the lines - Steve Cardownie
In keeping with the New Year resolution theme, one thing that the City of Edinburgh Council could do to improve it’s relationship with the public is to treat them seriously when assessing the outcome of “consultation exercises.”
The front page of this newspaper yesterday carried a story by Evening News journalist Ian Swanson, with the headline “WALKING OUT ON PEDESTRIANS.” This referred to a proposed travel scheme for Dundee Street and Fountainbridge and the walking campaign group’s Living Streets response to the city council’s consultation exercise which closes on Monday.
Living Streets contend that in the words of it’s Convener, David Hunter, “New cycle lanes shouldn’t come from walking space. We’ve already seen how pedestrian space was squeezed out in Leith Walk and Dundee Street would make the same mistake.”
The Group is concerned that pavement space width on some parts of the route will be narrowed to an extent that defies the council’s own policy on minimum width of pavements.
It will be interesting to see how the Council responds to Living Streets protestations but if previous experience is anything to go by, if I were them, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
We have already heard Transport Convener, Councillor Stephen Jenkinson say, when referring to the two choices of the proposed tram extension, the Roseburn Path or the Dean Bridge, that the consultation exercise was not “an opinion poll.”
To all intents and purposes, he wrote in favour of the Roseburn Path route recently in the Herald newspaper and is obviously concerned that the outcome of the consultation exercise might be heavily weighted in favour of the Dean Bridge.
While this will probably be academic since the source of the funding for the tram extension has yet to be identified (if any) this does not bode well for the integrity of future so-called “consultation exercises.”