Report Roads and Pavement issues to Clarence HERE You have the option to Register with City of Edinburgh Council if you require feedback and a reference number. If you pass on the Reference Number to the Community Council we will follow up on it to ensure the matter is dealt with.
You can also email: roads@colintoncc.org.uk Find information on Roadworks and travel disruption HERE (this section is under development) We also have linked with the Edintravel Facebook page HERE
Gritting routes and grit bin locations can be found HERE
It’s a sad state of affairs when the fixing of a pothole in our City is newsworthy- but it is. Particularly in this case when it follows a serious accident in June 2023 on Bridge Road, outside the Dentists’, heading towards the bridge. A cyclist who impacted with this pothole fell over her handlebars, breaking her jaw, teeth and a finger. This was widely reported and the family are now seeking compensation from the Council.
Press reports say the pothole was first reported in August 2022 via the Council’s online reporting system. The overall condition of the road to the village was raised with CEC by one of Colinton’s Community Councillors in January 2023 who told the Council :“a number of potholes remain that are small enough to be minimal for cars but large enough to be a major issue for cyclists”. Prophetic words….
Following the accident in June the pothole remained unrepaired over July and was reported again by a Community Councillor on the Council's emergency number. Then, after a second negative press report, the pothole was patched, as this image from another of our Community Councillors shows.
So why was the Bridge Road pothole not repaired sooner? Local City Councillor Scott Arthur, Convenor of the Transport and Environment Committee, has said:
“I understand that officers inspected the site in line with the Council’s risk-based approach to repairing potholes and decided that the defect did not need to be prioritised for repair. This suggests to me that the Transport Committee should reconsider the funding it has allocated to dealing with reactive repairs to allow defects like this to be repaired more quickly, I shall be discussing this issue with council officers.” So………. there is hope!
If you see a pothole that could be a risk to pedestrians, cyclists or drivers, please report it via https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/roadproblem
Serious Problems with CEC Consultation on Lanark Road Spaces for People Scheme
At our May and June meetings, we agreed to send a formal complaint to the Council about the unacceptable standard of ETRO (Experimental Traffic Regulation Order) notices in the ColCC area of Lanark Road. These notices formed an important part of the Council’s city-wide statutory notification and consultation on whether various traffic schemes, including that on Lanark Road, introduced under Spaces for People (now rebranded Traveling Safely), should be made permanent, removed or modified.
Our letter was sent on 17 July and broadly we complained about:
- the inadequate number of ETRO notices: only three to cover both sides of Lanark Road in the Colinton area
- the height of the ETRO notices: many were too high for the average person to read, excluding anyone less than 6ft+; in a wheelchair or mobility scooter
- how difficult the notices were to read/understand: local street names were listed with around 70 other street names; the typeface was all in capitals-particularly hard for people with dyslexia; long Roman numerals were used; and there were some 600 words on an A4 page
We also made a series of suggestions about how future consultations using ETRO notices could be improved.
We have since received a response thanking us for our suggestions and undertaking to look into the issues raised. Given that the whole Consultation has to be run again because of various internal flaws in the Council’s processes, here’s hoping that they make a better job of it next time!
The full text of our letter and the Council’s response are available in the links below.
On 29 November 2022 ColCC reps met with CEC’s Daisy Naryanan, Head of Placemaking and Andrew Easson, Road Safety Manager to discuss the proposed changes to traffic management at the Bridge Road/Spylaw Street junction and along Bridge Road.
ColCC’s position is that the City’s approach failed to deal with some key safety issues at the Bridge Road/Spylaw Street junction; while supporting the City’s other proposals for Bridge Road i.e. speed cushions in the village; and position of speed limit signs on Gillespie Road.
ColCC also acknowledged that the mini-roundabout design they had proposed would be challenging and expensive and agreed to drop this proposal pro tem, with the proviso that it might be re-visited in future.
The CEC officers acknowledged that Col CC’s latest ideas and concerns were worth investigating and so all the proposed works around the junction will be paused pending the result of further investigation. Finance will be found in 2023/24 for the resulting plan. All other agreed measures will be implemented asap.
ColCC regards this as a significant “win” for local democracy, with the CEC agreeing to listen to local views.
Many thanks to those who responded to our online/library/Art in the Park Consultation during September 2022. Your views count- without them we cannot represent you!
After more than three years of planning and consultation the City Mobility Plan was formally approved at the Council’s Transport and Environment Committee on 19 February.
CEC’s Spatial Policy Team are now working to deliver the policy measures in the Plan, with many actions being delivered through more detailed actions plans such as the Active Travel Action Plan and the Road Safety Plan. The development of these action plans will bring further opportunities for dialogue as they progress.
A copy of the final City Mobility Plan is here. It is a lengthy document but an Executive Summary of some 10 pages is included.