The project in Colin Smyth’s constituency involved a street where there was a real problem with parking and rat-running cars. It was a difficult street to cross and a lot of elderly people who lived in the street felt quite intimidated and just preferred to stay in rather than go out. The problem was that either they could not get down off the pavement or they could not get across the road, which had a crossroads. It was one of those streets that every town has a few of and which are acknowledged as a real issue.
It was the council who raised that issue, but we worked with the residents as a kind of bridge between the residents and the local authority. We got to a point where we had a pragmatic design that everybody was happy with and could live with, which was then delivered. I do not think that that would need to happen in every street in Scotland, but I think that there will be some streets for which it is a great approach.
I would say that 90 per cent of the people on that street bought into the project and are now very happy with it. Indeed, the residents have formed a development association and are greening vacant and derelict land, among other things. The project brought people together and created a sense of neighbourliness, and it solved the issue.
The project was a really good one. It was not expensive, because it was not infrastructure led, with people saying, “Let’s redesign things,” and it was not a case of the council telling residents how things should be; it was very much about the residents saying, “We are part of this and we will work with you on the design.” It took about a year of discussions before anything was built, and at the end of all that there was a solution that worked really well.
I hope that I have answered your question. As I said, that would not have to happen on every street, but on streets that are really narrow and tight for space because of parking difficulties, it is a great approach, which redistributes parking. That happened in the example that I mentioned: space was poorly designed and badly used, and we rearranged it so that it works effectively.