Submission to Dennistoun Area Partnership: September 2021

A PDF version of this submission is available here.

The below queries were submitted by Dennistoun Community Council to the Dennistoun Area Partnership meeting held on 1st September 2021.

RE: ITEM 5 ‘YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD, YOUR PLACE’

If full answers cannot be provided at the meeting, could the Executive Director of NRS provide them after the meeting?

1. Known Projects

Some known projects in or affecting Dennistoun currently include:

• ‘Low Traffic Neighbourhood‘ (review)
• Liveable Neighbourhoods consultation (proposed)
• Restricted Parking Zone (consultation)
• Pavement parking ban (advance preparation)
• Low Emission Zone (post-consultation)
• Inner East Strategic Development Framework (post-consultation)
• Learning Quarter and Merchant City – City Centre District SDFs (ongoing)
• Others?

There’s significant overlap in the aims and objectives of these projects and it is essential that the lead officer for each project is fully engaged with the lead of each of the others, to ensure that there are no contradictions, and to minimise duplication of work.

According to GCC (email dated 8th June 2021), “lessons can be learned from the SfP measures” and “this is only the start of a bigger conversation within the community to look at ways we can work together to achieve the positive outcomes we all hoped for.”

What are the latest timelines for each of these projects? In what ways are they formally communicating progress and developments – both internally within GCC and, then, how are the outcomes of these considerations directly communicated to external stakeholders such as DCC and others?

2. Cycle lockers

Some have been installed in alternative locations, i.e. not in the on-carriageway locations proposed. Documents from the 2nd February 2021 Environment, Sustainability and Carbon Reduction committee meeting listed locations and noted that all the Dennistoun cycle lockers would be located on the carriageway. This was recorded in our 9th February 2021 minutes.

What, specifically, are the reasons for the amended siting of each of the cycle lockers in Dennistoun away from their originally proposed carriageway locations?

3. EV charging points

The installation of the EV charger at the library is particularly inexplicable, considering the cycle stands already located at that exact location. But more generally, in order to meet the aims of numerous policies, objectives, plans, strategies and guides supposedly being worked to, EV chargers should be installed in the carriageway, so as not to be taking space away from active travel.

Why are EV chargers being installed within active travel space rather than within the ample carriageway space available?

4. Pelican crossing on Duke Street at Whitehill Street

Bagged off and out of use on 26th August. The lack of studs/stop line markings was raised with a Cllr as a matter of urgency at the Dennistoun CC meeting on 8th June. It is understood that the work specification issued with all such resurfacing jobs requires that if permanent road markings can’t be reinstated straight away for whatever reason, temporary stop lines are to be put down as an interim safety measure.

Why has this carriageway been more than three months without even temporary stop lines being installed after resurfacing? This busy crossing in a high pedestrian footfall area should be reinstated ASAP.

5. Co-wheels car club

There is no longer a vehicle on Whitehill Street. When asked about this, Co-wheels stated that “The vehicle was relocated to a different location to get more utilization“.

A specific point to be made here is that the convenience and user-friendly nature of this location outside Coia’s has been severely and persistently diminished due to the huge amount parking violations (multiple, daily, by repeat offenders, with solid photographic evidence available), and the long-term lack of effective parking enforcement in the area. Returning a hired car to this designated space was a problem more often than not.

The broader point is that this scheme is absolutely integral to the Council realising its aim of reducing levels of vehicular traffic and parking. Provision needs to be expanded, to locations solidly at the heart of population centres, and better promoted, rather than withdrawn unannounced and without clear explanation or justification why.

The Whitehill Street Co-wheels car hasn’t been relocated to another (more suitable and accessible) location in Dennistoun – why not?

6. Advertising trailers

Two trailers with advertising billboards are parked on land adjacent to Duke Street. One opposite Melbourne Street, one near Kelvin College. Both are on GCC-maintained land, according to GCC Grounds Maintenance mapping.

Can the advertising trailers on land adjacent to Duke Street be removed?

RE: ITEM 6 ‘POLICE’

If a full answer cannot be provided at the meeting, could the relevant officer provide them after the meeting?

7. Spaces for People scheme

According to GCC (email dated 8th June 2021), “the contraflow cycling measures were removed in response to feedback from Police Scotland which highlighted the risk of collision in the narrow residential roads“.

Motor vehicles and cycles co-exist on numerous two-way streets throughout Dennistoun where cars are parked on both sides of the street. These roads have identical geometry to the one-way streets. With this in mind…

Can Police Scotland provide clarity on the claim that well-marked and properly-signed one-way streets with contraflow cycling create a risk additional to that which is allowed to exist on otherwise identical two-way streets?

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