This website tells you about some of the news and activities in and around Duddingston Village.

The site is maintained by Duddingston Village Conservation Society, which represents the residents of the conservation area, including the old village and houses adjacent to Duddingston House.

STOP PRESS
Council considers report on traffic in Duddingston
Below we reproduce the statement made DVCS

DUDDINGSTON VILLAGE CONSERVATION SOCIETY REPRESENTATIONS TO THE TRANSPORT AND INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE, 23 NOVEMBER 2010

Convenor, Councillors, Ladies and Gentlemen

Thank you for the opportunity to address this Committee on behalf of Duddingston Village Conservation Society.

My name is Lindsay Crofts; I am elected Secretary of the Society. Our Chair, Dr Windsor, sends apologies, as he is away on business and unable to attend today. I have with me fellow elected committee member Nick Marshall.

The DVCS is a registered charity with 90 registered members resident, or with an interest in, the Duddingston Conservation Area. We have discussed traffic at a succession of well attended AGMs and the views we represent today are those which the Executive Committee has been mandated to put forward. We have formally surveyed opinion in the area on a range of issues including traffic, and we have carried out a detailed traffic survey in the village. Copies of our reports on both surveys were sent to the Council. Our position representing the views of the community is therefore well founded.

In addition, because past information from Council and Historic Scotland officials has been intermittent, contradictory, confusing and at times opaque, we have engaged W A Fairhurst and Partners, Transport Consultants to advise us on the practical measures which may be possible to address the problem. We will be happy to make Fairhurst’s report available to officials when it is complete.

Now turning to the Council report: you have the terms of the agreed motion before you. The study was to look at the consequences of changing Old Church Lane and the Holyrood Park Low Road from a de facto arterial route into the city; and in doing this get direct input from Director level in the relevant Departments in partnership with the Police and Historic Scotland, and to involve residents meeting with the relevant directors.

Since the Community Partnership meeting in February 2010 when we were promised consultation and action, we have not seen hide nor hair of a council official. - no information has been sought from us, no views have been sought. And any attempt by us to communicate with officials has been rebuffed by 2 line e mails saying that nothing could be discussed with us at this time.

Having read this report it is most unfortunate that such consultation did not take place as the report is clearly ill informed about the issues, the options, the legislation and certainly about the community’s own views.

FIRST looking at paragraph 5 on which the conclusions and recommendations of this report are based. This paragraph is entirely wrong in its interpretation of the legislation. Having been asked to consider the problems on the low road of Holyrood (that is the section between Duddingston and Pollock Halls), officials have quoted legislation which was introduced as a specific derogation for the Queens Loop – that is the section between The Parliament and the Scotsman Offices. I have here a letter from the Procurator Fiscals office to the Justice Minister confirming that the current legislation prohibits from the whole park everything from light commercial vehicles upwards with the exception of the Queens Loop derogation. I am happy to make this letter available to officials to help them understand the legislation. It means though that the references to ‘heavy good vehicles;’ and to vehicles over 7.5 tonnes, in paragraph 5, and in the subsequent options discussed, bear no relation to issues the report is meant to cover.

SECOND: Through this Society the community has never asked for the Park road to be closed nor any village road to be closed; nor have we sought ‘Except for Access’ restrictions. We know that a few individual residents have lobbied the Council to have such a restriction on the Causeway, but the view which we have been asked by the community to represent is that all efforts be made to tame the traffic, reduce the volume, impact and speed of the traffic, but not to block off any road. We believe that Duddingston Village and Holyrood Park are special places which should be open to and enjoyed by everyone who wishes to appreciate them. As the report says, there is an historic business – the Sheep Heid – within the village; and the Kirk, and gardens to be enjoyed by everyone. We have made these points very clearly to officials in the past and were therefore disappointed to read references in this report which suggested that an ‘Except for Access’ solution was the preferred choice of residents. Had we been consulted we could perhaps have been able to make that clear.

THIRD: We were more than surprised to read the reference in para 13 that one option would be to ‘… maintain access through the Park for residents….’ This, along with other similar references, we regard as a disgraceful attempt by officials to suggest that the motives of Duddingston Village residents are self-serving, and a clear attempt by officials to encourage division and opposition within the wider community. In addressing those Councillors who represent the areas directly affected, can I assure you that these statements are absolutely untrue and can I ask that they be removed from this report.

FOURTH: we were saddened that absolutely no effort has been made to identify any safety measures whatever to protect the children of HolyRood High School from the traffic chaos they encounter daily as they cross between tuck shop and school.

Looking now at the options. According to the agreed motion officials were asked to look at the Old Church Lane/Low road route and assess its suitability as an arterial route into the city. This report contains no analysis and no such assessment; just a series of unfounded assertions. Given that I have now clarified the Park Regulations, and the community’s views, then the options chosen are both inappropriate and irrelevant. They tinker with the flow of traffic around the village, and propose intermittent road closures at off-peak times instead of addressing the traffic volume when it is at its peak. The suggestion that any diversion of traffic from this route onto the two most appropriate arterial routes of Milton Road/Willowbrae Road and Niddrie Mains Road/Peffermill Road would create havoc on these other routes, suggests serious mismanagement of the road system, and can only underline that this narrow village lane is overloaded.

We have asked our transport consultants to look closely at the options proposed, and also to consider others. They have detailed comments which we will be happy to share with Council officials. However of the 2 options chosen in para 7, the first is just bizarre and the second is based on misunderstood legislation.

Councillors, we need to reduce the traffic on Old Church Lane; improve traffic flow on more appropriate routes; increase safety outside HolyRood High School and stop the Causeway being used as a dangerous rat run.

Can I make three suggestions:

First : The regulations are already in place to ban all commercial vehicles from the Park; if white vans, pick up trucks and the like were removed from this as a through route, as well as the HGVs and buses (the City Council bus being the most regular offender) it would make a significant difference. The law already bans them, all we need is a means of enforcement.

Second: Proper traffic calming measures in the Park to slow traffic down would make it a route people took because they wanted to be there, and not just because it was the fastest way into the city; it would also make it a safer route for all users (including walkers and cyclists) and reduce the chaos, road rage and danger to residents when fast traffic is forced to slow down in the narrow streets of the village

And Third: more effective traffic calming effort in the Causeway would stop folk speeding from one end to the other to beat the queues.

This report has all the hallmarks of one written by officials who don’t want to take action, and so point up the difficult and inappropriate options, only to knock them down again. Given that officials have failed to carry out the necessary analysis, have failed consult the community, have misinterpreted the community’s views and have failed correctly to interpret the legislation, we suggest that this report should be withdrawn as it stands and that officials should be asked to go away and think again with more open minds.