Welcome to Living Streets Edinburgh

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Edinburgh, with its generally dense population and walkable distances, could be a European exemplar of a pedestrian-friendly city. But the many sensible walking-related policies of the City of Edinburgh Council too often don’t translate in practice into a safe and attractive walking environment on the streets. Motor traffic continues to dominate the vast majority of the city’s streets – yet there are clear economic, environmental and social benefits in prioritising pedestrian movement within a high-quality public realm.

Our overall aim is to:

Promote walking (including ‘wheeling’) as a safe, enjoyable, accessible and healthy way of getting around Edinburgh.

To this end, we want to see:

  • walking given the top priority over other forms of travel in all council transport and planning policies;
  • a reduction in the volume of motorised traffic and its impact on people using the street;
  • better designed and maintained pavements, road crossings and other pedestrian facilities;
  • more effective and joined-up monitoring and inspection of the walking environment by CEC;
  • planning policy which encourages dense, sustainable housing over car-dominated, dispersed development;
  • more effective implementation of pro-walking policies ‘on the ground’.

Our priorities for action in 2026 are to:

  • Campaign for increased budgets (capital and staffing) for the
    pedestrian environment by the City of Edinburgh Council, especially
    to:
    • widen footways;
    • tackle pavement clutter;
    • improve priority for pedestrians at signalled crossings;
    • improve accessibility by installing dropped kerbs and continuous
      footways.
  • Secure better enforcement of controls on parking (including new
    ‘pavement parking’ provisions) and speeding.
  • Support specific local campaigns for place-making and traffic
    reduction.
  • Develop our work on walk-friendly environments at and around
    schools.
  • Influence planning policy and practice to aid walking and wheeling
    and reduce motor traffic.
  • Influence Holyrood 2026 to support our four election asks (engine idling, zebra crossings, roadworks and speed cameras: https://bit.ly/4o5nTVd )
  • Grow the number of our supporters and range of our campaigns.

If you would like to get involved in our work in any way, please email us at:
 edinburghgroup@livingstreets.org.uk

 

Living Streets calls for more spending on pavement maintenance

Consultation Response, Council Policy

The report on the Capital Investment Programme to Committee today (Item 7.1) proposes yet another freeze in the footway maintenance budget – at £3.5 million for the fourth consecutive year. At the same time, spending on carriageway maintenance has more than doubled. Our calculation is that, allowing for inflation, the footway maintenance budget has risen just under 10% since the administration came in – well below the 25% promised in the Labour Party manifesto. So an increase of half a million ££ (up to £4 million) in the footway maintenance budget would be required now, just to deliver that commitment.

We’ve also been told that there are:

  • 17,000 missing or substandard dropped kerbs.
  • 71 traffic signalled junctions with no ‘green man’ pedestrian facilities at one or more road.
  • 40% of roads in the city with pavements narrower than the 2 metres minimum set out in both national and local guidance (Sustrans WACI 2023).

To be fair, there is some progress in all of these areas, and we understand some TVL money will go on fixing the pavements, but this change is incremental at best.

Investing more in better pavements and pedestrian crossings would benefit residents in every ward inhe city and would receive wide public support. Local street improvements can also help deliver other transport priorities including buses and cycling. Far more so than the expensive and often over-engineered projects which occupy so much of councillors and officers time, perhaps exemplified by George Street.

When this Committee agreed project priorities for capital funding last May, there was one programme which did focus on improving local streets: this was branded “Liveable Neighbourhoods”. But it was ranked 71st in the list of priorities, so didn’t proceed. There are two petitions before the Committee today – in Broomhouse and Portobello – whose concerns would be directly addressed by this programme: are there really 70 other active travel and public transport projects which are more important than improving local streets?

We appreciate that the council has limited funds and also that there’s a lot of public concern at potholes on the road. But there are potholes in pavements too. The council does have options to change its priorities. If we are going to see the transformational change in walking promised, there has to be transformational change in Council spending.

“Barnton Connections’: comments by LSE

Consultation Response, , , , ,

This is the formal response by Living Streets Edinburgh (LSEG) to the consultation on the ‘Barnton Connections’ active travel proposals closing on 9 February 2026.

We agree with the aim of connecting Maybury Road to NCN 1, and also improving the ability to cross Queensferry Road by walking and wheeling, especially in view of the massive increase in housing in the Cammo/West Craigs areas and consequent need to promote sustainable travel options in the area. We recognise that this is a very challenging brief given the amount of traffic using Barnton junction.

We provisionally support the proposals, with one specific exception regarding bus stops (see below). We say “provisionally” for three reasons: firstly because we understand that no modelling of pedestrian movement has been undertaken; without understanding how pedestrian movement is affected, for better or worse, we can’t provide definitive comment on the plans. This modelling should be an essential exercise in any major junction change.

Secondly, the proposals do not seem to include any new bus priority measures. In view of the importance of the A90 as the principal road link between Fife and Edinburgh, the focus on cycling, walking and wheeling on a north/south axis seems narrow: a wider brief which includes general traffic and especially public transport as well as pedestrian and cycle links would seem appropriate.

Finally we wonder, in view of all these complexities as well as expense and disruption, whether Maybury Road-Whitehouse Road directly across the Barnton Junction is the most sensible route to link cyclists from the south of the A 90 to NCN1. We note that the Cramond Barnton and Cammo Community Council suggest that a number of alternative routes may be more appropriate to connect key cycle links. We do not feel in a position to support or oppose this suggestion but believe that it should be looked at carefully.

Turning to specific aspects of the presented design, we would make the following comments:

We especially welcome the cycle/pedestrian route over Queensferry Road at the west side of the Barnton junction changing from a 4-phase to a 2-phase crossing, which we expect should enhance pedestrian movement significantly. We would ideally like to see improved crossing opportunities to the east of the junction as well.

Other welcome aspects include the new signalised crossing on Maybury Road at Cammo Gardens, particularly given the amount of new housing development in the area and the volume of traffic on Maybury Road. We are pleased to see some pedestrian build-outs which improve side road junctions, for example at Barnton Avenue West/Brae Park, Barnton Grove and Queensferry Road itself. The removal of hatching on Whitehouse Road allows a better use of the carriageway, especially as we understand the speed limit is to rightly be reduced to 20mph. A lot of space at Barnton junction itself is unpleasant with excessive guard rails and new planting would be welcome. The walking routes and space at the shops and past the Royal Burgess Golf Society are currently poor and would be made more pedestrian-friendly by these proposals.

The switch of the cycle lane from the west to the east side of Whitehouse Road just north of the shops looks odd. Presumably this is to minimise the number of side road junctions interacting with the cycle lane: however, most northbound cyclists heading from Barnton towards South Queensferry or Cramond would surely continue to use the road rather than cross over to the cycleway (and then back again)?

On the negative side, there appears to be little if any, general footway widening except at some junction build-outs. Indeed there seems to be a slight reduction in many footway widths. The ‘criss-crossing’ of the pavements by cycle ways at junctions (including Barnton Junction) should be avoided: many pedestrians, especially those who are older, less mobile or have sensory impairments, value pavements as spaces where they feel safe from potential conflict with any vehicle, including bicycles.

We are disappointed to see two new ‘floating’ bus stops installed on Whitehouse Road; we receive regular feedback that these are a problem for older and disabled people, especially visually impaired. The northern-most bus stop has no footway at all, so requires pedestrians to cross the cycleway twice to move along the pavement, even if they aren’t catching a bus. This is a clear breach of council ESDG standards; we would therefore like to see conventional bus stops retained.

February 2026

Living Streets webinar on Local Place Plans

Consultation Response, Council Policy, Public Event,

The webinar on Local Place Plans has now taken place. You can watch the webinar here:-

Local Place Plan webinar – from Living Streets Edinburgh

It’s time for our first webinar of the year! It’s for anyone interested in Local Place Plans, and how they can positively impact your community. You might be working on one already.

A Local Place Plan allows you to shape the future of your local area by creating a plan that addresses local needs or concerns. All LPPs must be submitted by September 2026 and will be considered by the Council as it develops the City Plan 2040.

LPPs include things like:

  • where new homes will be built and what kind of homes are built
  • providing services that people need within easy reach
  • making sure there are enough places of work within the city
  • improving walking, wheeling and cycling routes and access to public transport
  • supporting residents physical and mental wellbeing
  • protecting the natural environment
  • responding to the climate crisis, such as adapting to increased flood risk

Improving walking and wheeling routes is our bread and butter, and we want to empower community councils and groups to work on and submit their LLPs before September.

For the webinar we have two speakers:

  • Anna Grant of the development planning team, Edinburgh Council
  • Joanna McClelland, accredited conservation architect and founder of EALA Impacts, the not-for-profit built environment consultants Followed by a Q&A.

Worried about the September deadline?

We will also cover the Council’s ‘call for ideas’ starting in July – meaning that everyone can contribute to their community’s well-being, whether or not you will submit an LLP. Join us to find out more.

Response from LSE regarding Improving Charlotte Square Project.

City Centre Transformation, City Mobility Plan, Consultation Response, , ,

While we recognise that the plans for Charlotte Square will have benefits for pedestrians including improved accessibility, we believe that the latest designs do not fully consider the needs of pedestrians and their safety.

In particular, we consider that the following issues require further consideration:

  1. The location of the pedestrian crossings from George Street to Charlotte Square do not meet desire lines and therefore there is a risk that pedestrians will use other means to cross Charlotte Street.  How have the locations for the planned pedestrian crossings been selected?

  2. These crossings are across three lanes of traffic and a cycle path. Clearly the time available for pedestrians to cross this busy road needs to be adequate for all walkers and wheelers including those with impaired mobility. Do these crossings meet the latest national design guidance for such infrastructure? Has any modelling of pedestrian footfall been undertaken to confirm that the crossing space is adequate? 

  3. From our monitoring of the pedestrian crossings at the junction of Charlotte Street and Princes Street we have observed vehicles “jumping the red lights” at these crossings. We are concerned that due to the significant traffic on Charlotte Street and the potential for congestion that drivers may be tempted to do the same at the new crossings. The design and signage of these crossings need to reflect the expected volume of vehicles and pedestrians.
  • We understand that it is currently planned to install a non-signalised crossing on the south side of Charlotte Square. Given the traffic volumes, the proximity to the junction with Hope Street and the width of the road we strongly believe that this decision should be revisited on the grounds of pedestrian safety. A signalised crossing would provide a much safer option for pedestrians.

We are also concerned that this project is being progressed at the expense of other projects in the City Mobility Plan and question whether the maximum score for impact on walkers and wheelers is justified. This is not a high footfall area nor are there known road safety concerns in contrast to the Cowgate where we have strongly advocated for changes to improve road safety. Given the limited funds available it is critical that they are spent on the areas which will deliver the greatest benefit in line with the Council’s published travel hierarchy.