Spaces for People – Scottish Borders Council

We have secured funding totaling £1.2m for a series of ambitious temporary infrastructure trials to encourage safer active travel.

This support from the Spaces for People programme, which is funded by the Scottish Government and managed by Sustrans Scotland, will be used to support a number of pilot projects over an 18-month period which will aim to make it easier and safer for people to walk, cycle and wheel for every day journeys as the country moves out of lockdown.

A number of trial 40mph areas, road closures and one way systems in specific locations are currently being implemented, while a 20mph trial in over 90 Borders towns and villages is being introduced from October 2020.

An interactive online map has been developed, showing the impact on speeds at survey locations across the region since the introduction of the trial.

Pedestrian and cycle accident data covering the period 2010-2019, showing the frequency and severity of accidents in Borders towns, can also be viewed.

Decision-making process

• Our officers successfully applied to Sustrans Scotland for funding for the 20mph trial as part of the nationwide Spaces for People programme, after receiving a number of requests over many years from community groups and individual residents wishing to extend 20mph schemes to a wider area
• A public survey was also held in summer 2020 asking for suggestions for potential temporary works to take place as part of Spaces for People
• The final decision to go-ahead with the 20mph trial in the Scottish Borders was taken at a full Council meeting on 27 August
• The decision to trial the 20mph was not driven by numerical data and no numerical data was used as part of the decision-making process to trial the speed limit change
• Since the decision was made at Council, an external company has been appointed to collect traffic data at locations across the Scottish Borders
• As well as 20mph signage, other road safety interventions such as electronic signs, lining and some temporary traffic calming features will be trialled as the experiment proceeds
• Traffic data will be collected in the coming months and provided to Edinburgh Napier University to carry out a number of scientific and statistical tests to produce an independent evaluation of the trial
• Community councils will be surveyed in the coming months for their experiences of the trial, while a public consultation will take place in spring 2021. School pupils and parents will also be surveyed to determine if the 20mph has made any difference to their travel to and from school and their social activities in the evenings, weekends and holidays
• A report will be taken to full Council in summer 2021 including details of the Edinburgh Napier Univeristy evaluation, community council surveys and public consultation, with decisions then made at this meeting on which schemes to retain and which should be removed

Further details

• Over 90 towns and villages are included in this programme
• the full list of when signage is expected to be installed in each locality is available on our website
• a team has been assigned to each locality to progress the new signage at the same time, which means all signage is expected to be in place by the end of this year
• The installation programme began on Monday 5 October in Stow, Coldingham, Eddleston, Newcastleton and Sprouston and will continue to other communities in each locality
• all Temporary Traffic Regulation Orders (TTROs) are in place for each community