We, the undersigned, unequivocally reject and object to the Council’s proposals to enforce a Low Traffic Neighbourhood and road closures on the East Craigs area under the smokescreen of Covid-19 emergency ‘temporary measures’.  The LTN is I’ll-considered and will increase congestion, emissions and journey times, endanger access to Emergency Services and increase risks to all road users.  Drum Brae junction and roundabout, identified by SusTrans as the most dangerous accident black spot in Edinburgh, will become even busier.

We note that the Council intends from the outset to make these changes permanent, and is on record as stating that the need was identified from the West Edinburgh Link process (which predated Covid and therefore has no relevance).  We further note that no mention of Craigs Road closures was made in the WEL proposals, and that there is no justification for these temporary measures for public safety directly related to Covid.  Indeed, the World Health Organisation specifically recognises that ‘streets and sidewalks’ do not represent a Covid risk.

Therefore, we conclude that the Council has misused Covid-driven temporary legislation to introduce a permanent scheme that is unrelated to Covid, against the democratic wishes of 1,300+ previous petition signatories, and 470 Spaces for People objections (representing 99.3% of the total responses received).  As such, these are proposals that are permanent in intent and not related to Covid, and so must be subject to consultation.

For the avoidance of doubt, we call on the Council to immediately cancel the Low Traffic Neighbourhood and related proposals for East Craigs, at the very least until a full consultation has been undertaken, at which the democratic will of the majority of respondents MUST be respected.

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