Covid recovery plans missing their target - Kevin Buckle

I was listening to the news this week while processing online sales and there was a piece on new temporary cycle lanes and the disruption they were causing, especially to the disabled. Nothing that isn’t on Twitter every day, so I didn’t really pay much attention.

Comparing Edinburgh with a city like London is not relevant, says Kevin Buckle

All the usual stuff followed about people not being consulted, with organisations annoyed that the council was saying they had been consulted when they had simply been told there would be changes.

I then heard the new cycle lanes were on the seafront, so thinking this must be about Portobello I stopped working and changed the screen so I could see where they were broadcasting from.

The woman being interviewed was saying that the problems they were facing were widespread and not just in Brighton!

I had thought I was listening to the Scottish news but it turned out it was the national news.

Meanwhile in Berlin last year things got more serious when a German court ruled that cycle lanes had to be removed, saying that the pandemic was being used as an excuse to justify the extra cycle lanes.

What will be interesting to see is what happens when we finally get back to some kind of normality.

If things continue to go from bad to worse on the high street, then my prophecy last year that cyclists would be passing empty shops will certainly come true.

At the same time, several ventures at the moment seem to be relying on rooftop views of the castle, which is certainly a draw for some visitors, but does rather miss the point that you can see the castle from just about any rooftop in the city centre.

There is a worry that much of the talk about what shape the economic recovery will take is quite simplistic and sometimes even naive, and that those responsible for carrying out any measures will not themselves feel the financial impact if they fail.

All the money that has been spent coping with the pandemic will have to be recovered one day and business rates, for one source, can only be revised downwards.

Talk about going after the online retailers that have greatly benefited in the last year, while steadfastly paying as little tax as possible, are hardly new and have had no success so far, so there is little reason to believe things will change now.

Generally I think most folk would agree that more needs to be to encourage people to leave behind their cars, or indeed not to have a car at all, but it is the amount of effort that is being put into this one area that is worrying many.

While the controversy over cycle lanes and other measures is clearly now a worldwide issue, Edinburgh is quite a unique city and different solutions will be needed to what might work in other cities.

Too often I see comparisons with cities like London and Copenhagen that are just not relevant.

Only time will tell in the coming months.