Grand ideas mean little when they get in the way of delivery - Ed Thornley

Exactly which projects will become clear in time, but this rationalisation goes straight to the heart of an issue sitting at the centre of the council’s programmes.

Ed Thornley, Liberal Democrat councillor for the Drum Brae/Gyle ward

Namely, that the council is continually writing cheques it cannot seem to cash.

Take my own ward in west Edinburgh for example - speed limit changes agreed in 2019 still not delivered, major junction works two years overdue and pedestrian connections mired in delay.

Edinburgh was the first city in Scotland implementing a citywide 20mph network, but has been slow in other areas

These should be relatively bread-and-butter works for a council looking after an expanding city, but there is clearly a fundamental issue with delivery in Edinburgh.

Councillors in all parties seem to agree on this. Yet, at the next council meeting we will see another raft of new ideas and projects come forward from councillors, which will take more officer time and effort away from delivering existing projects.

The council has declared three emergencies in the last few years – climate, housing and nature – but progress on all three is glacially slow.

At the same time, basic infrastructure projects are stalled. Six years and counting, just to change a speed limit.

A few months ago, 53 Parent Councils across the city wrote to councillors to stress their concerns that the council was failing to tackle road safety issues around schools.

My group, the Liberal Democrats, responded to this by securing the highest ever funding for road safety at this year’s budget.

The next challenge is how that money is used to speed up delivery and how it can be spent most effectively to make meaningful change. That means choices.

Because when you prioritise everything, you prioritise nothing.

Grand ideas can come forward, but mean little if they are forgotten – or worse, actively block progress on vital projects like road safety.

Instead, councillors must focus on actually making change, rather than feeling good about ourselves for all our big ideas gathering dust on the shelves – because that’s what we should be here to do.