A decision on making Covid-era traffic safety and calming measures in the east of Edinburgh permanent has been delayed.
Councillors on Thursday said they were worried about the feasibility of introducing new road infrastructure to replace the current temporary barriers and other solutions in place.
And they asked council officers to return to the Traffic Regulation Orders Sub-Committee on September 4 with information on how they plan to do it.
The temporary order allowing the measures is in place until October 28, with officers saying that it would take about two months after a decision to get permanent orders in place.
The changes were aimed at enabling social distancing while outdoors and making it easier to walk and cycle in the city.
Some of the changes relating to limits on traffic, including bans on waiting and loading in some areas in the east of Edinburgh, have been kept since the pandemic ended.
The decision has already been deferred once, from a meeting in May.
In order to make the measures permanent, the committee will have to vote to set aside public objections, some of which relate to issues with the temporary infrastructure.
Liberal Democrat councillor Kevin Lang asked council officer Andrew Easson how much making the temporary measures would cost.
Mr Easson said that he could not provide a price estimate as decisions had not been made on which temporary infrastructure would be made permanent.
Cllr Lang replied: “When the committee met last time, the report said that consideration would be given to upgrade the infrastructure.
“And then during the course of the meeting, it was explained to us that it would be upgraded. But it seems that we’ve gone back to the fact that only consideration would be given.
“We have received objections on the basis of the temporary infrastructure.
“I’m trying to understand what certainty or clarity this committee has as to whether it can set.”
Mr Easson said that a £500,000 per year fund for upgrading Covid-era infrastructure across the city had been approved by the Transport and Environment Committee recently.
He continued to say that the fund would have to be shared between five areas covered by different experimental orders, like the one in the east of Edinburgh.
He added: “We don’t know which schemes we are going to do, and we haven’t yet begun looking at each individual scheme.
“If we have an objection to say that people are saying the temporary infrastructure is likely to be struck, or people are likely to trip over it, that could be a big concern, in a high street environment, for example.
“On the other hand, if you’ve got a stretch of road that has virtually no footfall, and no frontages, and very few people cross the road, and it’s a long, straight bit of road, it’s probably not that likely it’s going to get hit, and probably not that likely anyone’s going to trip over it.
“In some locations, we would look to go in and address that, because the risk is higher, but in other locations it might be that we decide it’s a low priority to upgrade that particular part of the scheme.”
Council officer Dave Sinclair added that all of the temporary infrastructure would eventually be replaced, as all of it has a service life that will run out at some point.
But he said that council officers wanted to look at all the temporary schemes in the city together before deciding how to prioritise replacing infrastructure.
Later in the meeting, Cllr Lang said: “I feel really disappointed that after almost three months, we’ve not been given information that I think is kind of what we alluded to in May, in terms of what we needed to make us comfortable with making a permanent decision.
“There’s not been work done on how much it would cost, we don’t know where it would happen, and yet we are being asked to make a permanent decision today.
“I think that is an incredibly difficult thing for us to set aside objections, which is what we’re being asked to do, and put faith in something that may or may not happen.”
Conservative councillor Phil Doggart added: “I’d back that up, because I think one of the other challenges is the fact that we have one ETRO covering a significant distance.
“The challenge around that is that we’re still giving a blanket approval to the whole ETRO when it may well be that it could be years before anything is done.
“We know the financial challenges we’ve got, and how quickly priorities can change. So I’m really struggling to say that we do have full information in terms of being able to make a decision today.”
Green councillor Alex Staniforth said: “I think I do have enough information to know whether to let the ETRO lapse or to make it permanent.
“The fact is, we can’t prevaricate much longer. I think we have to make a decision today. And while I understand that we might prefer to have more information, the timer has run out.”
Liberal Democrat councillor Hal Osler added: “I am not comfortable with this situation. We’ve had three years to get information on this.
“People have fed into a survey, there are still genuine concerns. We’ve asked a number of questions, we’ve delayed this committee already, we have not got any more assurity.
“Metaphorically having a gun to your head to be told, ‘we’re either going to agree or it’s all out’, is a very unfortunate situation to be in.”
“I feel enough chance has been given to gather the information. I unfortunately can’t actually support making this decision positively today.”
Council officers then argued that a decision had to be made at Thursday’s meeting in order to ensure a permanent traffic regulation order could be in place by October 28.
But after being asked if a delay to the September 4 meeting was possible, officers said that it may be possible to keep the rules and infrastructure in place past October 28 with emergency orders for a short period of time if needed.
Mr Easson told councillors that bringing costed plans for which parts of the scheme could be made permanent by September 4 would be extremely challenging.
He added: “The quality of the information – it’s going to have to be pulled together very quickly.”
“Everything that’s considered to be high priority, there is enough money to deal with that. What we can’t say is that there’s enough money to deal with everything, whether there’s a pressing need or not.”
Committee convener and Labour councillor Margaret Graham said: “I think we’ve batted this around as much as we can, I don’t think we can go any further.
“My position is that we defer the decision to the committee on the fourth of September, and ask the officers to furnish us with more information as per the discussion today.”
The committee then agreed to back the delay.
Councillors will make a decision on whether to make the traffic calming measures permanent at the next meeting of the Traffic Regulation Orders Sub-Committee on Wednesday, September 4.
By Joseph Sullivan Local Democracy Reporter
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) is a public service news agency. It is funded by the BBC, provided by the local news sector (in Edinburgh that is Reach plc (the publisher behind Edinburgh Live and The Daily Record) and used by many qualifying partners. Local Democracy Reporters cover news about top-tier local authorities and other public service organisations.
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