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Postcard from Peebles

12/31/2020

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I recently had the pleasure of working with the Tweeddale Access Panel (TAP), helping them to assess options for making the streets of Peebles more accessible for disabled people. I wanted to write briefly about this for two reasons - the process of conducting work like this under the restrictions of the coronavirus pandemic; and secondly, some wider observations arising from the work.
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The processs...

In terms of the process, TAP had secured some funding from the Scottish Borders Council and wanted to find some support to help their members look critically at the pedestrian environment and find ways that it could be made better for disabled people. We agreed to arrange a series of street access audits in September and October, before the winter weather set in; however, this also was when new restrictions on gathering and physical distancing came in. As a result, I thought that we would need to postpone the project. 

However, the Chair of the Panel proposed a creative solution - that we would do audits, not in small groups but in pairs, and then I had the job to collate and assemble our findings. So I carried out three audits in Peebles (essentially north, central and south) with the TAP chair, while other members of TAP ‘buddied together’ on walks in pairs to carry out their own surveys in the town. In all, we conducted seven ‘mini-audits’ between us and these were collected into three reports (plus a summary). 

Inevitably, this method meant that some of the richness of on-site discussions about different views was lost. Everyone has a unique perspective and different people pick up on different things during an audit, and I only got to meet two of the TAP members. However, it was possible in this way to bring together a wide range of different inputs while complying with Covid-19 guidance, and producing resources which will hopefully result in tangible improvements to the town’s accessibility.
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Observations and insights...

The findings of this work are for TAP to take forward as they see fit. But I was struck by some observations about pedestrian mobility in the town which I think are of broader significance. 

Firstly, on my initial visit, I was quite surprised to find that the High Street had only a single pedestrian crossing (a pelican).  As a result, people are constantly walking in and through traffic to cross the High Street. If a vibrant street like this is to work at its best, it must be easier to cross it safely!

The broad High Street itself is (less surprisingly) packed with cars. Relatively high levels of car use and dependency are always a factor in rural market towns, and Peebles has an additional fundamental problem in that the A72 runs straight through the town centre. However, there must be options to reduce the dominance of traffic through the town - most obviously the introduction (along with other towns in the Scottish Borders) of experimental introduction of a 20mph limit must surely make sense on a permanent basis?

Finally, away from the town centre, the engineering of residential areas illustrates the massive legacy of streets hostile to walking which so many towns suffer from. In the south of the town especially, the post-war housing estates have massive ‘bell-mouth’ splays at almost all junctions, encouraging vehicles to move fast and increasing the distance for pedestrians to cross. In the older northern part of the town, many pavements are barely a metre wide, often adjacent to significant traffic levels. Although most pavement surfaces are in relatively fair condition, dropped kerbs and (even more so) tactile paving is scarce. In these circumstances, it was therefore not surprising to learn (and observe) that many wheelchair users and buggy pushers use the road rather than the pavements. A sight which is a fairly damning verdict on the pedestrian environment…
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Overall, this is not an environment which encourages everyday walking and wheeling and will take years and a lot of money to fix, and of course, not just in Peebles. At a national level, new plans and priorities for infrastructure investment are being made, through the work of the National Infrastructure Commission and soon, the Strategic Transport Projects Review. Will this result in real investment in better neighbourhood pavements, road crossings and such like? This may not generate the same headlines as duelling trunk roads or launching new ‘active travel freeways’, but might be the best value investment of all, for the benefits to health, local economies, inclusion and the environment.  We need to make a start!
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25 years since disability discrimination was banned (...transport excluded)

12/31/2019

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The year 2020 marks 25 years since the passing of the first Disability Discrimination Act (DDA). Shamefully, transport was entirely exempted from Part III of the Act, which outlawed discrimination against disabled people in accessing goods, facilities and services. The Department of Transport fought tooth and nail against including a general right of access to transport in the 1995 Bill (education was also initially excluded). The government saw the proposed DDA as a more business-friendly alternative to a rights-based approach to tackling disability discrimination through a Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill, such as proposed by Harry Barnes MP - and as supported by the disability rights movement.  Explaining the exclusion of transport (and education) from the Bill, Disability Minister William Hague said in March 1995 “we have had the good sense to allow that matters such as education and transport deserve to be treated in a different way.” (1)  

The government maintained this stance throughout the passage of the Bill.  In the House of Lords, on 22 May 1995, Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish (Minister of State, Department of Social Security) said “We have…made it clear that we believe that progress towards accessible public transport is best achieved by targeted action rather than by any kind of blanket legislation. Different modes of transport inevitably require different access solutions. A simple application of Part III to transport vehicles is not therefore appropriate." (2)
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The government also initially rejected the more specific case for requiring minimum access standards for public transport vehicles. Defending this, William Hague had said in January 1995 “It is obvious nonsense to suggest that excluding transport vehicles from the Bill denies disabled people access to transport. The Government's record on initiatives in that area is second to none.” (3)

However, during the passage of the Bill, the Government was forced to accept what became Part V of the 1995 Act covering public transport, including powers to make access regulations about vehicles, carriage of passengers in taxis, etc. This resulted, among other things, in the Passenger Service Vehicle Accessibility Regulations (PSVAR) being introduced in the year 2000. 
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There have undoubtedly been significant improvements in public transport access in the past 25 years (look at how low floor buses have transformed much local travel) but many problems remain.  Although the second (2005) DDA put right the exemption of transport services generally from the ‘Part
 III provisions', the exclusion of transport in the 1995 Act cost disabled people a decade of improvements in access to transport; the consequences of which we still live with today.
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Should 'continuous pavements' have tactile paving?

7/22/2019

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I’m a big fan of the benefits of ‘continuous pavements’ which extend the footway over side roads. They give pedestrians clear priority over turning vehicles and provide a flat surface that makes crossing a side road much easier for anyone with a walking difficulty or mobility aid (including a wheelchair). They also slow down traffic, benefiting cyclists as well as people on foot. Commonly used in some parts of the continent, continuous pavements are becoming more common in the UK, often as part of neighbourhood improvement and cycling schemes. (Photo: Middlefield, Leith Walk, Edinburgh)
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However, blind people have expressed serious concerns about the concept of continuous pavements, which RNIB oppose. As the RNIB says, the problem is that they “pitch us, without warning, into a shared space without knowing it.”

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London Cycling Design Standards acknowledge these concerns, saying that continuous pavements “should currently be regarded as experimental in the UK. Further development of the concept is needed, in consultation with access groups, to determine acceptable approaches, given concerns over the lack of delineation between the footway and the area accessible to vehicles that runs over the entry treatment. Any proposal should be subject to an Equality Impact Assessment.” (P43)

So would the obvious design solution be to add tactile paving to continuous paving, to warn a visually impaired pedestrian that they are entering a space where they may encounter a vehicle? My hunch is that many advocates of continuous pavements would resist the use of tactile paving in such situations on the grounds that it would signal, to both pedestrian and driver, that walking priority is limited. Rather than walking across the side road with full confidence, a pedestrian should pause and check that vehicles aren’t turning into or out of the side road, undermining the ‘people over vehicles’ philosophy. Tactile paving also can inhibit the mobility of other disabled pedestrians, so it should not be over-used.​

But on many ordinary pavements, there is already a risk of encountering a vehicle every few yards - where there are driveways or garages. The reality is that many pavements are already ‘shared space’ to some degree, as is every crossing of a side road. Would anyone expect tactile paving to be installed every time a driveway crossed a pavement? (Saughton Road North, Edinburgh).
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Sometimes, a pavement crosses a small development where several cars are parked; here the risk of encountering a vehicle is clearly increased, but still so low that tactile paving may not be suitable. (Stanhope Street, Edinburgh).
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There comes a point, however, when the volume of traffic, and therefore the risk of pedestrian-vehicle conflict, is sufficiently high that it would surely be reasonable to provide a tactile warning to visual impaired pedestrians. And where a busy side road has too much traffic, it may not be suitable for a continuous pavement at all. (Yeaman Place, Edinburgh)
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So, should continuous pavements have tactile paving? The answer is probably “it depends”. As with so many other aspects of street design, each site really needs to be designed specific to the context, especially taking account of traffic (volume and speed).

As the DfT is at last reviewing the woefully out of date guidance on ‘Inclusive Mobility’ and
tactile paving it is timely to give this some serious thought. It would be useful to have detailed national guidance, based on both research and consultation on if, where and when tactile paving is required on a continuous pavement.
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Cherry-picking statistics downplays the impact of bad cycling

7/5/2019

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I’m increasingly seeing a specific statistic cited by cycling advocates responding to criticisms of antisocial or dangerous cycling: i.e. that over 99% of pedestrian deaths are caused by motorists, while cyclists are responsible for fewer than 1% of pedestrian fatalities.  An example is Laura Laker's piece in the Guardian last year, while recent examples by journalists and broadcasters include Jeremy Vine and another Guardian journalist Peter Walkers’s Youtube video.  

This statistic shows, so the argument goes, that cyclists present a negligible hazard to pedestrians, and that criticism of cycling is misplaced. Road safety effort should be directed to motor vehicles which are overwhelmingly responsible for deaths and injuries on the road. And of course, this is true; for example, according to the
Department of Transport 2017 Great Britain traffic collision statistics (Table RAS10012), just under 1% of pedestrian fatalities were caused by collisions with bicycles. So why do I find this line of argument dispiriting?​

A sole focus on fatalities will always downplay the problem cyclists can cause pedestrians. The proportion of *injuries* caused by cyclist collisions with pedestrians will be considerably greater that this “1%” figure.  Simple physics (speed x mass) means that an impact between a bicycle and a pedestrian is less likely to kill than an impact between a motor vehicle and a pedestrian - but injuries, including serious injuries, are more frequent.
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As the table below shows, the percentage of all serious injuries sustained by pedestrians resulting from a collision with a cyclist were considerably higher than 1%. The proportion of ‘slight’ injuries recorded for pedestrian/cyclist collisions is also more than double that for fatalities at 2.3%. However, this is almost certainly a very significant under-estimate of the ‘slight’ injuries caused by pedestrian-cyclist crashes. Many collisions which don’t involve a motor vehicle (and insurance implications) are unlikely to be reported to the police (and therefore officially recorded) especially if they don’t result in a serious injury.
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So the *total* number of injuries to pedestrians caused by collisions with cyclists is considerably higher than the ‘1%’ figure often quoted (for fatalities). I would imagine by a factor of at least 3; possibly as high as 5 or more?  Of course, this is still very low compared to crashes involving motor vehicles, which are overwhelmingly responsible for pedestrian (and cyclist) casualties. So does it matter if cycling accounts for 1%, 3% or 5% of pedestrian collisions? Yes, I think it does. 
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Firstly, selective cherry-picking of statistics discredits the basically sound argument that the  principal focus of road safety efforts should be on motor vehicles (rather than cyclists).

Secondly, we need to recognise the anxiety that cycling can cause pedestrians. While there seems to be little statistical or academic evidence on this, there can be no question that inconsiderate cycling - especially on pavements, or through pedestrian crossings - seriously intimidates many pedestrians; especially those who are blind, deaf, old or generally less confident and steady on their feet. Indeed, Peter Walker acknowledges in his video that pavement cycling can intimidate; but in the next breath describes it as “harmless”. 
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While it is wrong for the media and politicians to disproportionately focus on cyclists’ involvement in pedestrian collisions, it is also wrong for cycling advocates to simply dismiss the impact of inconsiderate cycling as negligible or irrelevant. A little more empathy from some cycling campaigners - such as on the lines of Suzanne Forup’s excellent recent blog  - would not go amiss; it might also do more to win wider public support for more investment in cycling.
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Let's talk about taxis...

4/5/2019

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There has been a lot of discussion about the number of buses on Edinburgh’s Princes Street, and the idea of removing some or all of them as part of moves to reduce traffic in the city centre. (See here for my thoughts on the subject). However, I’ve seen very little discussion about taxis. When private traffic on Princes Street was first restricted 20 odd years ago, most council officials wanted taxis banned entirely but after lobbying by the taxi trade, this idea was dropped. It would be timely to revisit the matter. 

​Thousands of taxis use Princes Street each day - my surveys suggested that they could form more more than a quarter of all vehicles on the street. But many taxis carry no passengers at all. I carried out a count of how many passengers occupied 50 taxis in the block between Frederick and Hanover Streets in half an hour on the morning of 2 April. Just over half the taxis passing had no passengers, with the driver either plying for hire, or off duty.  Only 9 (18%) carried more than one passenger. The average occupancy of all taxis was 0.7 people (excluding the driver, obviously). More detailed surveys of different parts of the street and at different times are needed to establish better data, but these results raise important questions. Is this an efficient way to move people in the city centre? Is this the best use of the premium space that is Princes Street? Removing taxis would reduce congestion and pollution, speed up buses and make cycling safer.
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The taxi trade would clearly be hostile to any plan to exclude them from Princes Street.  It would add to their costs - and that of their passengers. Many people making their living through taxis already feel under siege from the explosion in the number of private hire cars (which aren’t permitted to use Princes St) and threatened by policy measures which could be introduced as part of a Low Emission Zone. 

​I am a big fan of taxis as an important (and often under-valued) part of the transport mix, especially for disabled people and others who need door-to-door transport. But at the end of the day, taxis aren’t there for the benefit of the taxi trade. There are wider interests to consider and it would be timely to have a renewed discussion about where taxis are, and aren’t, appropriate in a city centre less dominated by traffic.

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Motability: it’s other peoples’ money

2/8/2019

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Motability has been criticised again by the House of Commons Work and Pensions and Treasury Committees at evidence taken on 9 January. This follows publication of the recent report by the National Audit Office (NAO) which broadly endorsed the criticisms of executive pay, reserves and governance. Senior figures in both the Motability Charity and its commercial arm Motability Operations say they accept all the NAO recommendations - while appearing at the same time to justify all their actions. Some words used by MPs included “evasiveness”, “lack of transparency”, “defensiveness”. NAO’s head, Sir Amyas Morse, concluded his evidence by saying “there does need to be change”. 

Three observations: Firstly, risk management is fundamental to the business, and Motability Operations makes much of its “dynamic and robust approach” to managing risks (lots more like this screenshot in the Annual Report). So how didn't it spot the very obvious reputational and political risks currently resulting from its remuneration and reserves policies? They were surely not hard to foresee…
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Secondly, much of Motability Operations’ justification for the levels of executive pay was made on the grounds that it is a complex business. The CEO was apparently paid £360,000 ‘retention payments’ in addition to long term incentive payments likely to exceed £2 million (which were only recently revealed to MPs). However, as a monopoly, Motability has no competitors; it has one principal source of income (disabled peoples’ benefits) which is in effect guaranteed; it has a single principal business activity (car leasing) and it operates solely in the UK. In essence it is a very simple business - it is big, certainly, with a turnover of over £4 billion - but that is not the same as complex.

Finally, from listening to the evidence of Motability representatives, there appears to be no real awareness whatsoever that the money it accumulates as a surplus is disabled people’s money. All the money in the system - including the assets of around £3 billion between the different  Motability organisations - derives from the disability benefits of individuals. Motability Operations really has no business collecting more from its customers than it needs, whether this is passed on to the Motability Charity or not; it’s other peoples money, not theirs.
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Motability: too much stability for good governance?

1/2/2019

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Until last year, Motability (the supplier of cars for disabled people) attracted little public attention. However this changed last year when the Treasury and Work and Pensions Committees issued a highly critical joint report [https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/work-and-pensions-committee/news-parliament-2017/motability-report-published-17-19/ following press criticism of the levels of its reserves and executive pay. This in turn led to a review by the National Audit Office, which broadly endorsed these criticisms in a report launched on 7 December 2018 https://www.nao.org.uk/report/the-motability-scheme/.

I have been following these reports on behalf of the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland (MACS) which will advise Scottish ministers on any recommended action. Motability essentially consists of two parts: the Motability Charity, and its much bigger commercial arm Motability Operations, which leases the vehicles. The NAO raises questions on too many issues - from executive pay, value for money and the extent of influence of Motability Charity on Motability Operations - to comment on here, but one thing which has struck me is the apparently cosy world which seems to have dominated many key governance roles.

For example, until last year, the average tenure of Motability Charity trustees was 18 years. Motability Operations had the same auditor (Price Waterhouse Cooper) for 24 years until last year http://fr.zone-secure.net/-/MotabilityAnnualReportAndAccounts2018/-/#page=70 Four out of the five listed directors of Motability Operations appear to have been recruited from two companies (Lease Plan UK and Dial UK) which share a common address https://www.motabilityoperations.co.uk/about-us/our-executive-team/#0. In addition, it seems that almost all Trustees and Non Executive Directors have traditionally been London-based.

Motability is a success story, having grown massively since it was founded as a modest charitable venture by its current Chair Lord Sterling and the late Lord Goodman in 1977. Motability must now be by far the biggest player in the UK’s ‘accessible transport’ field, with some 625,000 customers and a turnover of over £4 billion a year. It would be therefore reasonable to expect the highest levels of transparency and accountability to its customers and the the public in general, especially as it is ultimately paid for entirely through disabled peoples’ benefits.  Stability may be a virtue, but would such ‘generous’ levels of executive pay and ‘large unplanned profits’ (to use NAO’s terms) have been challenged more effectively if there had been more change in personnel and greater diversity?

A number of significant changes appear to have been made in 2018, presumably in response to the new levels of political and NAO scrutiny: for example several new appointments have been made both to the Board of trustees of the charity and Non Executive Directors in Motability Operations, and a new auditor appointed. Motability (the charity) has promised to implement in full all the NAO recommendations, so is likely to remain in public eye in 2019 while efforts are made to improve governance.
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Princes street traffic/buses (part two)

9/29/2018

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Last winter, I carried out a short traffic survey of Princes Street. I wanted to see if Princes Street is really clogged up with buses, as is claimed increasingly in some quarters. Only half the traffic on the street turned out to be local buses.I repeated the exercise in August, to see if there was a marked seasonal difference and the answer seems to be no.
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Local service buses again formed less than half of all traffic in Princes Street, with other significant vehicles including tourist buses and especially taxis. Many of these vehicles don’t stop at all on Princes Street, using it simply as a short cut thoroughfare. If reducing traffic on Princes Street is a key aim (as it appears to be as part of the ‘City Centre Transformation initiative’), wouldn't it make sense to look at removing such traffic first?​
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Before any plan to significantly remove buses from Princes Street is developed, a much more nuanced discussion is needed on what the street is for (especially the balance between ’movement’ and ‘place’) and what are the implications of major changes on other city centre streets. There are also, as I argued previously, a number of other small-scale measures (from improved traffic enforcement to minor bus route changes) which should be explored before any major change to the bus network is contemplated.

Of course, these surveys (both carried out on a Wednesday afternoon) would need to be corroborated by proper traffic counts, including at morning and afternoon peaks and weekends. But they provide enough evidence to show there’s a risk of arriving at quick ‘solutions’ without first establishing the necessary information.
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The Iron Law of Street Clutter: “Clutter attracts clutter”

4/28/2018

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Another thought on street clutter...although widely recognised as a significant problem for pedestrians (both because it reduces the available space for walking and because it can represent a serious hazard for some people, most obviously those with visual impairments) what is less widely acknowledged is the apparent effect that street clutter has on attracting other clutter.
From my observations, there seems to be a clear pattern where temporary obstacles of one kind or another are often placed next to other obstacles. For example, an ‘A-board’ may be placed next to (or chained to) a signage pole. Old roadworks debris (cones, signs, sandbags etc) are left beside or behind a utility box or cycle stand. Wheelie bins may be placed next to a phone box and so on. Fly tipping of old mattresses or pallets etc is most likely to be next to some pre-existing clutter. Cycle stands on the pavement will invite the addition of A-boards or bins. The more untidy the space is, the more likely something will be added to it. So clutter attracts clutter - I’ve come to think of this as “the Iron Law of Street Clutter”.
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This is important because not only does one form of clutter seem to encourage the accumulation of more clutter, but it is often the combination of different forms of clutter - say ‘A-boards’ and signage poles - which most restrict pavement space and which most cause danger. No clutter is much better than some clutter.
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Where is the appetite for decluttering?

1/10/2018

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The Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation (CIHT) has announced its programme of annual awards for 2018. Unfortunately there is no category this year for ‘reducing street clutter’ as in 2017. This award was a very welcome initiative in view of the publication of the new Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions (TSRGD, or ‘Traffic Signs Regs’) in 2016. 

To those unfamiliar with this less-than exciting sounding document, this is the statutory guidance which governs when and where road signs are required. The guidance states ” the number of traffic signs has doubled in the past 20 years. This is unsustainable, and bears out the need to reduce signing wherever possible. A culture change is needed in the way signing is used” (2.9).​
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Many streets throughout the UK are littered with dozens of poles bearing signs indicating parking and loading restrictions, or warning of hazards. Leaving aside aesthetic considerations, they narrow the walking space for pedestrians especially if combined with other street clutter and can be a hazard for those with disabilities and visual impairments. It is also common to see signage poles with no sign on them, a pet hate of mine.

Many of these signs are no longer required at all under the new TSRGD policy - local authorities now have much more discretion and flexibility on how best to advertise Traffic Regulation Orders and such like which were previously strictly prescribed. The 2016 guidance also relaxes the former requirement for many signs to be lit, recognising that there are many more options for high-visibility signs now on the market. This has huge potential for councils to save money through reduced electricity consumption and cheaper maintenance.
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Despite its timeliness, my understanding is that the CIHT’s decluttering award last year did not attract many entrants. Particularly disappointing is that no entry was received from Scotland, I understand. Not one of Scotland’s 32 local authorities had either the desire, or the material, to submit an entry for what would surely be a ‘quick win’ in making streets less cluttered and easier for people to use. There are not many opportunities to both improve streets and saving money at the same time.
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Inadequate, narrow pavements are rife across the UK and realistically, funding to widen them significantly is not there in the short to medium term. Keeping them clear of clutter should therefore be a top priority for councils wanting a cost-effective way to encourage people to walk, with all the benefits that brings to the local community and economy. Lets hope that a decluttering culture will come into fashion soon, and the CIHT will resume its award ‘by popular demand’.
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     “I hate the way everyone responsible for urban life seems to have lost sight of what cities are for. They are for people” Bill Bryson, Neither here Nor there, 1991 p61

    Welcome to my occasional blog: mostly this is about making public places inclusive and attractive, but I may touch on other policy and governance topics…


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