Musselburgh Active Toun
Current Status: Design Development Early 2025
We completed a 6-week consultation on concept designs for Routes 4, 6 and Edinburgh Road (Route 2) in November 2024. The consultation report is currently being finalised and will be issued in February 2025.
View online consultation documents (Storymap)
Feedback from the consultation will be fed into the development of preferred concept designs for the three routes.
The Musselburgh Active Travel team continues to progress detailed designs for Routes 1, 2 and 5 and work with the Musselburgh Flood Protection Scheme design team to progress planning applications for the sections of Routes 3 and 5 within the general footprint of the Scheme.
This plan shows the network of routes:
Proposals for Musselburgh Active Toun active travel routes - October 2024
Project Overview and Previous Engagement
In 2018, East Lothian Council, and our partners AECOM and Sustrans, gathered data and opinions from the local community about what issues they faced when navigating Musselburgh's streets day to day. Using that, we identified routes that people thought were important and the improvements they’d like to see.
The first stage of work on this project was summarised in this report.
We consulted on our ambitions for three of the routes between May and June 2021, and subsequently reviewed and analysed all of the feedback which is summarised in a Consultation Report. We also produced a Consultation Gap Analysis Report which identifies sections of the community that may be under-represented in the responses that were received.
The feedback from the consultation, plus the effects of other schemes that have developed since then have led us to review the Masterplan. The other schemes include the Musselburgh Flood Protection Scheme (MFPS) which has expanded in scope and scale, the Brunton Journey Hub, Spaces for People and the Bus Partnership Fund. The revised Masterplan is set out in the Masterplan Addendum Report.
The Musselburgh Active Toun (MAT) team attended Flood Protection Scheme consultations at the Brunton Hall in 2022 where we gathered lots of additional feedback. The feedback is summarised in the MAT MFPS Consultation Report
Taking into account the MAT consultation plus feedback from Flood Protection Scheme and Spaces for People consultations we produced final concept designs for Routes 1, 2, 3 and 5 along with key local routes close to the town centre.
In 2022, we received funding from Places for Everyone to develop all these concepts into detailed designs, and to produce concept designs for Routes 4 and 6.
In June 2023 the MAT team attended Flood Protection Scheme consultations at the Eskmills Venue where we gathered further comments on the sections of Routes 3 and 5 that lie within the Flood Protection Scheme footprint.
After an extensive and detailed procurement process, in Autumn 2023 we appointed an external consultant to assist with further developing designs for routes outside the footprint of the MFPS while the MFPS design consultants are assisting with design work for routes on the MFPS footprint.
Design work started at the beginning of October 2023. Between November and January 2024 we sought views on the final concept designs for Routes 1, 2, and the section of Route 5 outside the MFPS, and on the initial concepts for Routes 4 and 6. The Consultation Report Spring 2024 includes information on how the consultation will influence the designs.
Prior to undertaking the previous rounds of consultation it was understood that Route 3 and the section of Route 5 which share footprints with the MFPS were to be designed, consented (confirmed) and delivered alongside the MFPS. As such, over the past few years, the MFPS project team undertook consultation on both the MFPS design and the MAT design (in the shared footprint locations) and there was no active engagement for these Routes during the MAT’s recent engagement period. Nevertheless, comments and feedback on these Routes received during this MAT consultation, were passed to the MFPS design team and have been considered by both project teams.
After completion of the consultation exercises, detailed discussions with ELC Planning and Legal Services concluded that sections of Route 3 and Route 5 cannot be confirmed through the MFPS under the Flood Risk Management Act and must be considered by the Council through the planning application process. Planning application documents are being developed for the sections of route and will be submitted for consideration in a phased approach.