👁️ After a controversial vote to remove the 'low traffic neighbourhood' through-traffic filters in the Braid Estate — from Cluny Gardens to Hermitage Drive in Morningside — back in March 2024, two of the Councillors who voted to rip out the filters have been censured by the Standards Commission for failing to declare living on the boundary of the scheme when participating in workshops and votes.
Here lies a lengthy stramash. Buckle up, bike fans!
The Greenbank to Meadows quiet route:
...runs from Greenbank to the Meadows. It provides a link that forms a key connection from the South of Edinburgh to the City Centre, via the use of modal filters and the existing parts of the active travel network. It was established in 2021 to provide a safe route for walking, wheeling and cycling, as an alternative to public transport during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Along the path of the Quiet Route and nearby are several nurseries, primary and high schools, and the route also connects with several different green spaces - the Meadows, Bruntsfield Links, The Hermitage (of Braid), the Braidburn Valley Park, the Braid Hills, Blackford Hill area and the Mortonhall estate & Pentland Hills beyond. — Friends of the Quiet Route
The northern half of the route between James Gillespies primary school and Cluny Gardens uses a handful of strategically-placed planters — 'modal filters' — to prevent north-south through-traffic, while still allowing full local access to residences and destinations within the route. Minor tweaks have been introduced at this end, but there has been far less local push-back and political wrangling, with less filters in place and fewer folks taking umbrage at having to drive a couple of streets further to make the place quieter and safer for everyone.
There are many, many residents throughout the route who are happier with the quieter, safer streets in their immediate environment. However, if you run a consultation and ask folk their opinions, you also get some pretty solidly self-selecting outcomes from folk with a lot of time on their hands, and a lot of bees under their bonnets.
The southern half, sadly, has borne greater witness to a haphazard political pandering playbook, "they're taking our freedumb" post-COVID council-generated traffic conspiracy melts, and mismanagement of consultation to the point of even presenting residents with multiple street layout options and treating the results more like a referendum than a consultation; the last rallying cry of an administration too scared to make bold enough decisions off the back of its own policies and data from the myriad of liveable neighbourhood schemes across similar cities in Europe and beyond. This dragged on through several phases of consultation, meetings, petitions and years. The pandemic's over - why can't I drive anywhere I want?
The facts are plain; monitoring showed that by implementing numerous modal filters across the estate's area, north-south and east-west through-traffic movements had been massively reduced - and while critics claimed this had merely been displaced to neighbouring streets, monitoring data showed this wasn't the case. More head-scratching from the 'antis', and more confusion about traffic evaporation.
The quiet route, and low traffic neighbourhood, was fulfilling its aims.
In the same Transport & Environment Committee ('TEC') meeting where strong words and promises were spoken about the duties of the committee to children like Thomas Wong — the 11-year-old tragically struck and killed by the driver of a private refuse lorry while he cycled to school in Barnton — councillors from the Labour administration sided with colleagues from the Conservative and Lib Dem groups to remove the modal filters from the southern half of the route, returning up to 6,000 vehicle movements daily to quiet residential streets. To busy routes for children walking and cycling to the two adjacent primary schools - to vote not to act, but merely to speak platitudes about the protection of children from road dangers, being faced in the same meeting with an opportunity to actually do something about it.
The Transport convener at the time - now MP, Dr Scott Arthur - looked visibly uncomfortable in the session, and actually followed up at the next committee meeting with an amendment to ensure that in making changes to the scheme, there was also an option to revert back to filtered streets again, without further legal wrangling or consultation being required.
New Experimental Traffic Order (ETRO) plans* included attempting to mitigate the new dangers of re-introducing through-traffic on this southern end of the quiet route with new protected cycleways - leading along Hermitage Dr to the top of Braid Ave, where a cycleway with floating parking would run down each side of the reopened street, narrowing it and encouraging slower vehicle speeds.
* Plans also include modal filters in the same document, providing the amendment's goal of being able to revert to filtered streets within the same traffic order.
Fortunately, the quiet route has lived on in its existing, filtered form for two full years since the decision - thanks to multiple delays, issues with paperwork and staffing, and most recently a hold on work to implement the changes that would have come at last in January of this year, were it not for a Standards Commission hearing looming on the horizon and potentially undermining the decision.
As such, the estate has remained filtered - two more years of quiet streets for residents, local access, cycling, wheeling and walking through the estate on school routes, family visits, shopping trips, and deliveries. And in spite of a vocal minority insisting that their sovereignty as Morningsiders has been wrested from their hearths by having a couple of blocks further to drive when they pop out, our roving correspondent Chicken Licken informs us the sky has yet to fall in over the Clunys.
Now — thanks to some dodgy dealings along the way — the decision is coming back to the Transport Committee one more time.
As we posted, the day the news broke, to Bluesky:
Today, a Standards Commission hearing for Lib Dem Councillor Neil Ross and Conservative Councillor Marie-Clair Munro found both had breached the Councillor code of conduct for failing to declare they lived by the Braid Estate when dealing with the Greenbank to Meadows Quiet Route, including their votes to remove effective traffic filtering from the area near their homes.
The Panel was satisfied, in this case, that the relevant facts, in respect of the objective test were:
- That the location of the properties owned by the two councillors were so close to the Quiet Route that any change to the ways in which traffic was being directed under it, and the consequent impacts (for example in respect of traffic volume, parking and pedestrian and cycle routes) were likely to affect where they lived.
- That councillors present at the meetings and workshop were being asked to consider matters concerning how the future of the Quiet Route would be planned or determined.
The Panel considered that, having applied the objective test both Cllrs Ross and Munro should have reached the view that a member of the public with knowledge of the relevant facts, as outlined above, would reasonably regard their connections as being so significant that they would be considered as being likely to influence their discussion or decision-making. This was because it was evident any decision or potential decision resulting from consideration of these matters would likely have a direct impact on the road in question and any nearby streets.
The Panel agreed, therefore, that both councillors should have declared an interest,
withdrawn from the meetings and taken no part in the discussion and decision-making on the
matter. The Panel found that their failure to do so amounted to a breach of the Code.— 📄 Full Standards Commission press release [PDF] »
The controversial and surprising vote to remove highly effective traffic calming measures from a residential area and re-introduce up to 6,000 vehicles daily — on a 'quite route' for walking, wheeling and cycling spanning two primary schools — must surely now be revisited at the Transport Committee.
A close-run matter in which two councillors — one of whom not even usually on the Committee! — voted in breach of the Code of Conduct surely cannot be considered a democratic agreement to remove filters that have made streets quieter and safer for residents and those travelling through the area.
Following the news many Councillors - including current and former Transport Committee members - weighed in on social media:
"This demonstrates that the vote to rip out the modal filters and other active travel measures in the Braid estate was not only unjustifiable, but also arrived at by a tainted process which must now surely be revisited." — former TEC Councillor Danny Aston, SNP
"It's essential that the decision to rip out the quiet route is now revisited. I have written to senior council officers to request this." — TEC Councillor Chas Booth, Greens
"It’s incredibly frustrating to see this happen.
Because of the error made by two Councillors, the Transport & Environment Committee now has to redo the 2023 (sic) vote on the Braids Estate “quiet route”, even though that original decision reflected the outcome of a full consultation.
After all the time, energy and public engagement that went into this, we’re right back where we started.
I dread to think what this mistake has cost — not just financially, but in trust and confidence too." — former TEC Convener Dr Scott Arthur MP, Labour on Facebook
"In light of this decision my Transport & Environment Committee will now have to revisit the vote taken on the Braids Estate LTN." — current TEC Convener Cllr Stephen Jenkinson, Labour
"It's clear it must come back - the integrity of the process has been shown to be completely compromised. Key Q now is will Labour reverse its dreadful position of voting with Tories & Lib Dems to rip out measures protecting kids travelling safely to & from school? If they don't this means nowt." — former TEC Councillor Danny Aston, SNP
So here we are — again.
'Option 3' for the Braid Estate pleases no-one; it puts over-engineered protected cycleways down what was otherwise a quiet residential street (in contravention of the council's own policies) in order to re-introduce rat-running traffic back to a quiet residential neighbourhood that wasn't designed for it (also in contravention of the council's own policies on managing traffic).
It's a botched answer resulting from a botched process, and it doesn't even meet the demands of the local cLowNciL commentariat, who are still shouting at each other about a return to some kind of pre-panedemic driving utopia - which isn't even on the table, if it did ever exist.
If you can't even please the loud laddy lobby by re-introducing 6,000 vehicles a day on quiet streets, why do it?
We don't yet know when this comes back to the Transport Committee. It could be as soon as their April 2nd meeting. We'll keep you posted.