Council responses to enquiries from constituents regarding the implementation of speed restrictions on Dreghorn Loan.
1st Departmental response:
The Council’s current approach to the installation of speed reduction measures, including physical traffic calming measures, was set out in a report to the Transport & Environment Committee on 11 October 2019, titled Evaluation of the 20mph Speed Limit Roll Out. Further details were provided within a subsequent report to the Committee on 27 February 2020, titled Approach to Extension of 20mph Limits.
The Council’s Road Safety Team undertakes regular collision investigations into all streets within the city, using details of injury collisions supplied by Police Scotland, which is responsible for the collection of all personal injury road traffic collision data within its force area. From this analysis, it is possible to determine locations where the collision rate is giving cause for concern and where road safety remedial works may require to be implemented.
As we hold historical collision data it is important to determine what time frame/dates to apply when searching. Guidance from the Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), in their Road Safety Engineering Course, is generally adopted in setting Accident Investigation Prevention (AIP) protocols and advises that a period for investigating and defining ‘accident problems’ is set at 3, 4 or 5 years. This provides a compromise between statistical and practical factors. In the City of Edinburgh Council, a period of three years is chosen for AIP work; if there are three, or more, similar collisions within that period, the location will be given consideration for an appropriate intervention.
In the latest available 3-year period (to the end of December 2024) there were no personal injury collisions reported to the Police in Dreghorn Loan. Please note that the collision retrieval undertaken and any data provided is accurate as of 24 March 2025.
As the Council generally only now introduces physical traffic calming measures such as road humps or speed cushions at locations where there is a significant history of speed related collisions, the current collision history does not support the introduction of physical traffic calming measures in Dreghorn Loan at this time.
The Road Safety team undertakes bi-annual batches of traffic surveys at locations where speeding concerns have been raised. Traffic data allows us to direct our resources to the locations where there is significant speed limit non-compliance.
I can confirm that a traffic survey was carried out on Dreghorn Loan near to Dreghorn Loan Hall between14/03/2020 and 20/03/2020 when the free flow average speed recorded was 21.5mph.
Following the approval of the report Evaluation of the 20mph Speed Limit Roll Out, by the Council’s Transport and Environment Committee, the Road Safety team will investigate the suitability of further speed reduction measures at locations where average speeds are measured above the normal tolerance of 24mph in a posted 20mph speed limit. The survey results for Dreghorn Loan are within normal tolerance and therefore do not justify additional road safety measures at this time.
We acknowledge it has been sometime since that survey was conducted and it may be prudent to reassess this location. However, it would be best to do so once the resurfacing has been completed and this could be done in the forthcoming autumn series of Speed Surveys if that aligns with a suitable period following completion of the resurfacing.
2nd Departmental response:
The use of physical traffic calming measures will generally only now be considered where there is either a significant history of speed related collisions or where average vehicle speeds remain excessively high following the use of other speed reduction measures.
The Road Safety team undertakes bi-annual batches of traffic surveys at locations where speeding concerns have been raised. Traffic data allows us to direct our resources to the locations where there is significant speed limit non-compliance.
As outlined in the report Evaluation of the 20mph Speed Limit Roll Out, which was approved by the Council’s Transport and Environment Committee on 11 October 2019, the Council’s Road Safety team will investigate the suitability of further speed reduction measures at locations where average speeds are measured above normal tolerance.
It is currently anticipated that the next batch of traffic surveys will be undertaken in Autumn 2025 if there is a particular location on Dreghorn Loan that you wish for a traffic survey to be carried out, please contact
Content received via Cllr Jason Rust