£12m Investment For Edinburgh's Roads

A report is to be considered by Edinburgh's Transport and Environment Committee which proposes how an investment of £12m should be spent improving the city's roads infrastructure.

At a budget meeting in February, the Council approved the allocation of an additional £12m for roads and footway investment in 2013/14.

At the time, it was agreed "an investment of an additional £12 million in the city’s roads and pavements with a commitment to begin to remedy the particular issues in rural west Edinburgh".

Now, it is to be decided how the amount will be allocated across seven different categories. They are:

• Carriageways & Footways



• City Centre Improvements



• Neighbourhoods



• Local Carriageway Surface Enhancement



• Other Asset Management



• Miscellaneous



• Cycling Improvements

If approved, an investment of £8.48m will be allocated to carriageway and footway works. Of this, £5.83m would be spent on resurfacing main roads and footways by using the existing prioritisation system to determine the programme of investment. Meanwhile, a further £1m would go towards city centre improvements, £0.8m towards pavements in local shopping areas and £0.85m for ward allocation.

To tackle the particular issues in rural west Edinburgh as noted in the Budget process, four carriageway schemes in the west of Edinburgh are proposed for capital investment in 2013/14. These are Freelands Road, Builyeon Road, Old Liston Road and Long Dalmahoy Road.

Continuing the Council's commitment to cycling provision, 6% of the 2013/14 budget will go on schemes selected after consultation with cycling forums and include bringing forward the completion of the A90 cycle route improvements Haymarket to Forth Bridges.

Councillor Lesley Hinds, Transport Convener, said: "If you take the amount approved in the budget together with the many other transport and street lighting projects the Council is currently working on, we're investing around £34.5m in the Capital's roads and pavements this year.

"The city's roads have taken quite a battering over the past few years after severe winter weather and the impact of significant projects such as the construction of the tram line and major utilities works. That's why we were determined to give most main, arterial routes a bit of a break as much as we could this year."

The £34.5 figure also includes £5.6m for the Leith Programme, £1m for Waverley Bridge, £0.8m for Lower Granton Road and an additional £1m to replace failed street lighting columns.

(JP/CD)