Retaining 'Spaces for People' measures – Let us know your views

Overview

This survey is for individuals and households, if you are responding on behalf of a business, please use the business survey.

During the Coronavirus pandemic, we’ve put ‘Spaces for People’ measures in place that aim to:

• help parents/carers and children to physically distance near schools
• help people to physically distance while using high streets, some city centre streets, and while exercising
• provide protected cycle lanes on main roads, so that people can consider cycling for trips that they might otherwise make by public transport.

Many Spaces for People measures are in place, but some are either currently being installed or will be installed soon.  To allow quick installation of the Spaces for People measures within the available budget, we’ve used low cost materials, including rubber kerbs and plastic barriers. You can see the existing and planned Spaces for People projects on our online map. Some measures - schools projects, high street ‘de-cluttering’, and our traffic lights auto ‘green man’ project - aren’t on the map.

Why your views matter

The Council is considering whether to keep some ‘Spaces for People’ measures in place, either on a trial basis or more permanently. This is because many of the measures may to help achieve Council objectives unrelated to the Coronavirus pandemic, including:

• encouraging more people to switch to more sustainable ways of travelling such as walking or cycling
• supporting high streets and city centre businesses by providing more space for people
• improving road safety
• improving health
• reducing carbon dioxide emissions, to help Edinburgh achieve  net zero carbon  by 2030.

Before deciding whether to go through the legal processes necessary to keep projects in place, we want to hear people’s views.

Please respond to this survey to help us to better understand how you feel about retaining the different types of ‘Spaces for People’ projects, and any you particularly wish to see retained or removed.

City centre

Space for exercise

Protected cycle lanes

Shopping streets

What happens next

Thank you for taking the time to give us your views. Before deciding which measures to recommend for retention we’ll review responses to this questionnaire and to other consultation on this subject, as well as assessing the ‘Spaces for People’ measures against longer term policy criteria.

We plan to report the results of this consultation to the Council’s Transport and Environment Committee on 17 June 2021.

Any proposals to keep measures in place that involve restrictions on vehicle movement, parking or loading must go through a legal process.  This will only happen after this current consultation has concluded and recommendations are made to the Council’s Transport and Environment Committee. The legal process provides an opportunity for objections, which must be considered by the Council before legal orders are made. 

We will publish updates and more information about the legal process on our website www.edinburgh.gov.uk/streetschemes.

Our Spaces for People ‘de-cluttering’ project involves removing poles, railings and bollards that get in the way of pedestrian movement. We will only replace these in exceptional circumstances, if they are required again once the pandemic is over.