We attended a pre-design workshop with varoius other community groups to discuss the following :

• Speed Limits through the length of the proposal
• Cycle links
• Residential Parking
• Pedestrian Links
• Crossings

Our group obviously supported the new Designing Streets policy in terms of speed limits and the management of speed through design, avoiding the need for formal traffic light crossings etc. We were informed that as residential parking could not be mixed with cycle lanes in the same street they were to remove all parking and put in cycle lanes – We objected to this effective ‘visual widening’ of the road as it will increase speed.

We have been invited to attend a further pre-design meeting at the council offices on the 20th Feb.

We decided to issue a statement following our first workshop, stating that we were disappointed at the lack of awareness of the new policy from council staff and consultants. We also wanted to make it clear that although we had attended the workshop we did not accept the junction treatment at the north or the scale of the bridge to the south.

We issued the statement to all the Economic Development and Infrastructure Services Committee members and our MSP. A copy of our statement is available.