Edinburgh Council is kicking businesses when they are down and putting cyclists and bus passengers on a collision course – John McLellan

Edinburgh Council’s Spaces for People programme is causing damage to businesses, increased congestion and new danger for people getting on and off buses, writes Conservative councillor and cyclist John McLellan.

The council administration has dismissed safety fears surrounding ‘floating’ bus-stops (Picture: Councillor Scott Arthur)

The job of the opposition on Edinburgh Council is to listen to the administration councillors so you don’t have to, and after three years we are well used to the vaulting self-belief and dismissal of any challenge to their claims, even when the obvious is staring them in the face.

But they have surpassed themselves in recent weeks, with the furious public response to the imposition of widespread road changes under the guise of the Spaces for People programme disregarded with the same high-handed arrogance with which we have become accustomed.

By some considerable way, the level of protest about street closures in East Craigs has surpassed anything I’ve ever received, and that includes the Save Meadowbank campaign, and a petition attracted over 500 signatures. The response has been to fob off local concern with a vague promise of a review.

It’s the same story at Comiston Road where the return of schools and the closure of Braid Road is causing congestion, while the road-narrowing leaves just five inches of clearance between passing buses. 300 people backed a Conservative petition in under a day.

The administration insists the pandemic means speed is essential and there is no time for public consultation, yet the data shows the virus steadily going in the opposite direction. There are fewer Covid patients in NHS Lothian hospitals now than at any time since the second day records started on March 16, 69 people compared to the high of 234 on April 25.

In East Craigs the aim is not just to widen pavements so pedestrians can keep a safe distance – the point of the £5m Spaces for People programme – but to close off so-called rat-runs. So it is not a temporary pandemic measure, but a permanent roads policy imposed by stealth. There are arguments for such action, but that’s not how it’s being sold and the SNP-Labour administration is tying itself in knots trying to defend an agenda in residential streets it wishes to remain hidden.

It is more brazen on main roads, but even so the SNP-Labour cabal refuses to accept untold damage is being inflicted on local businesses, rejecting any evidence except irrelevant, incomparable and out-of-date information from road schemes in other places to justify their approach. Meanwhile, traders are experiencing falls of around 30 per cent in their already crippled takings. As the proprietor of one well-known city centre business put it to me this week: “It’s a like a kick in the stomach when you’re already on your knees.”

At this week’s full council, the denials deepened when even the concerns of Edinburgh’s pro-pedestrian Living Streets campaign were dismissed because of praise from other Living Streets groups elsewhere. It beggars belief when a local campaign with detailed local understanding which should be an ally is instead marginalised because it is not slavishly onside with the SNP-Labour programme.

Living Streets is particularly concerned with the introduction of the “floating” bus-stop concept, in which the cycle lane runs between the pavement and the stance, forcing passengers to cross the lane to get on and off. When someone alights at one of these stops they must first ensure a cyclist isn’t scooting up the inside.

In rejecting Conservative calls for a moratorium while a proper safety appraisal is conducted, Tuesday’s council meeting was assured they work perfectly well in countries like the Netherlands and Denmark, but these are places with a deeply ingrained cycling culture and far more sophisticated cycle-ways than just some random lines painted on the road.

By contrast, Edinburgh bus-users are totally unaccustomed to such a system, but the message from its sanctimonious supporters on Tuesday was that Edinburgh pedestrians better get used to it. Perish the thought that a cyclist might actually stop behind a bus and either wait or only go past when it’s safe to do so, like every other road user.

Last week, council leader Adam McVey described Conservative support for concerns like these as “regressive nonsense” so the message from his administration is clear; if you don’t like it, get on your bike. Just as well I use one.

The determination to plough on with floating bus-stops is despite an objection from the RNIB Scotland which has pointed out the “unacceptable risk” these stops pose for blind people.

A perfect illustration, you might think, of the kind of attitude which led to Cllr Derek Howie quitting the SNP because he felt it didn’t do enough to support the rights of disabled people.

But no, Cllr Howie voted against halting these dodge ’em tracks even though he is blind himself. Maybe he forgot he wasn’t in the SNP any more.

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