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Open Spaces Strategy: Spokesworkers 21.3.10 & 20.4.10

[updated 21.4.10] Edinburgh Council is consulting on its Open Spaces Draft Strategy from March 26 to May 21.   It includes some great ideas, but could include more! …

New para 21.4.10: Public workshops to consult on the draft Strategy are running in locations across the city from April 21 to May 19.   Please try to attend the workshop covering your area, and any other areas that concern you.  For full details see our 20 April email circular to all members and the Council OSS consultation website.  Whether or not you can attend, please also consider sending in your own written comments on the Strategy and its accompanying Area Action Plans.

The 21.3.10 issue of Spokesworker gives some initial Spokes ideas on the Open Spaces Draft Strategy – but if you use green spaces (including off-road cycle routes) to get from A to B, then it’s really important for you to submit your own comments to the Council – and we\’d be interested to see them too.

Top point of excellence is that the Strategy places big emphasis not just on individual green spaces (such as parks or allotments) but on developing a Green Networkconnecting green spaces as part of a network for people to walk or cycle through.”  Then it lists a whole load of new connections which it would like to see developed.  Most exciting of which is a new pedestrian/cycle route connecting Roseburn to the Union Canal – in other words, connecting North Edinburgh Cycle Network to South Edinburgh!!  It won’t happen tomorrow, but we hardly dared believe we’d see it in any official plan, due to the engineering and the likely costs involved.  It has of course long been a Spokes ambition, and the idea was also a prizewinner in our 2009 competition.

In the new Spokesworker (21.3.10) we list several other connections we’d like to see added to the plan.  If any of these would be useful to you, please support them in your submission.   You may know other connections that should be added – include them in your submission, and let spokes know too.

One of the top links we’d like is Greener Leith’s idea of a pedestrian/cycle bridge over Leith Walk, on the line of the old railway.  This would connect the North Edinburgh Network to the East Edinburgh paths and on to Portobello.

Other things in the new Spokesworker…

  • Sign up to the Bike Station‘s Bike Challenge
  • Info and contacts about the General Election
  • Bulk sale special offer for the Spokes 2007 Edinburgh Cycle Map
  • Some online cycling safety surveys

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