Three years ago I wrote a blog post called Cycle parking, please can we have more…, where I suggested that there was a need for better cycle parking facilities in Edinburgh, and particularly in the tenement areas of the city. A year on, I thought I had found a possible solution (although the Cycledock website suggests there is a problem with the company).

I then found that Spokes were also looking at the problems of cycle parking in Edinburgh and were lobbing on the issue. Moving forward along the time-line, a year ago it was starting to look like all the lobbying and campaigning was about to pay off, as the City of Edinburgh Council proposed a £50,000 pilot on-street residential cycle parking scheme.

I put in an application to be a part of the pilot scheme, as did one of the owners in the next stair. We were delighted when we were told that our street was to be included in the scheme, this was in March (four months after the closing date for application). A site visit was arranged for May, which proved to be very positive. We discussed: problems with cycle storage for our tenemented street, the range of available on-street solutions, security, issues around management and maintenance, even a setting up a ‘Not for Profit’ Locker Management business. It was agreed that secure, covered cycle parking was a must (maybe something similar to this) and that lockers were also an option. Following the meeting, copies of the minutes were circulated (in July), which owed the next steps:

  1. Produce drawings showing positions and types of facilities.
  2. Initiate TRO [Traffic Regulation Order] process for removal/relocation of Parking Permit Holder spaces.
  3. Approach Streetscape with proposals showing locations and types of lockers.
  4. Investigate security certification.
  5. Produce ‘final’ design drawings for consultation with all parties.
  6. Procurement.

That all sounds great, but that was the last my neighbour and I have heard.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Edinburgh people are being asked to remove bike lockers from their front gardens. All of which leaves one wondering what is going on at the City of Edinburgh council.

Update 16th Oct 2012 – Received an e-mail today to saying:

Please accept my apologies for the delay in getting back to you.

We are still considering the points raised during the initial
consultation meetings (and some additional issues that we have become
aware of since), but I hope to have some preliminary designs ready by
the end of this month to discuss with all the applicants.

So it looks like there will be further progress soon.