Spaces for People

Overview of East Lothian's Spaces for People

East Lothian carried out an online consultation in May 2020 which set the local priorities for action on Spaces for People and, over the following months of ongoing engagement with community groups, these crystallised into more specific measures.

However, due to the difficulty in moving works forward in a time where local authorities across the country were all trying to do the same thing, and also due to necessary restrictions on working practices to ensure they were Covid-secure, we reached the end of the funding window without having spent our full allocation. Fortunately, we were able to carry over £180,000 to continue to maintain the interventions for as long as they are felt necessary, or to move towards making them permanent. We are also able to monitor the various schemes to inform their future development.

Successes

As thousands of ideas were put forward by members of the community, we looked first to implement those which appeared to be straightforward and uncontroversial. 

Council joiners, temporaily unable to go into people's homes to make repairs, got to work on a series of large on-street planters which were then used to protect extended pedestrian areas outside shops where the existing pavement was narrow, and also to demarcate a promenade area at Fisherrow Harbour.

Protected pedestrian space at Fisherrow

The temporary 20mph speed limits were implemented very quickly in order to provide flexibility for more creative use of outside spaces in town centres. We also reduced the national speed limit on key routes into secondary schools (most prominently Ross High) with the intention of creating safer conditions for cycling for those who did not feel comfortable catching the bus while restrictions were in place. We ran a number of promotional campaigns to discourage congregating in school grounds, and to reduce anticipated congestion at the gates.

Before the end of 2020 we had constructed a new temporary cycleway between Cockenzie and Prestonpans, relocated a major obstruction on busy pedestrian route to school in Dunbar, and created a protected path through the Hallhill car park. A pop-up park with tables and seating in Dunbar provided space adjacent to the High Street to allow cafes and other enterprises to make better use of this public space while eating indoors continued to be restricted. This has proved popular, with the local Area Partnership intending to re-use the furniture in future years. 

Early proposals to pedestrianise North Berwick town centre and relocate parking to the putting green were dropped in response to local opposition, and a substitute scheme which did not require the removal of so much parking was devised for the east end of the High Street. Also in North Berwick, a new one-way system allowed the footway to be widened on Law Road.

We brought an on-street bike hire scheme (Just Eat Cycles) to Musselburgh to provide additional choice of transport modes for commuting. Unfortunately the two sites, in common with the rest of the Just Eat installations in Edinburgh, suffered heavily from vandalism, and the provider withdrew from the contract with City of Edinburgh Council in September 2021.

As the country started to emerge from lockdown, East Lothian experienced an influx of tourists and visitors. Under Spaces for People, we had installed additional bike parking at 45 sites across East Lothian, but in some places, this proved to be insufficient!

Very full bike racks in Gullane!

Audits and assessments

All of the schemes were subject to safety audits, risk assessments and their impacts on different sectors of society were fully considered. 

List of schemes

View East Lothian's complete list of Spaces for People schemes