2026 March Draft Minutes

Minutes of Meeting of Merchiston Districts Community Council (MDCC)

Held on Tuesday 17^th March 2026, 19:00 at Polwarth Tennis and Bowling Clubhouse

In-person public meeting chaired by Ian Doig, Chair of MDCC

Attendees (38):

Guest: Councillor Stephen Jenkinson (Convener of CEC Transport and Environment Committee)

MDCC Members: Ian Doig (ID – Chair), Vivien Kitteringham (VK – Vice-Chair, minutes), John McKenna (JMcK – Secretary), Gordon Cameron (GC), Alison Edelsten (AE), Joan Houston (JH), Clemens Kupke (CK), Vanessa Meadu (VM), Roma Menlowe (RM), Bridget Stevens (BS), Hilary Swanston (HS), Helen Zealley (HZ),

Residents: Lynsey Houston (LH – Chair of Craiglockhart Primary School Parent and Carer Council), Marley Henderson (MH – Spokesperson for the Merchiston Grove Traffic Group) and 5 further residents from Merchiston Grove, 6 residents from Harrison Road – spokesperson member CM above, Pam Peters (North Merchiston Club), plus 10 further residents.

Visiting Community Councillor: Ken Robertson (Secretary Edinburgh Association of Community Councils)

Apologies for absence received from: Mairianna Clyde (MDCC Planning Lead), Frances Hawarden (MDCC Treasurer), Councillors Kevin McKay and David Key (Ward 9), Councillor Ben Parker (Ward 10)

1. Traffic Issues – Discussion about local traffic problems and the way forward:

(AI Summary provided by Zoom with slight corrections by VK):
This part of the meeting of Merchiston District Community Council focused on traffic and road safety issues affecting several residential streets in the area. Spokespersons from Ashley Terrace, Merchiston Grove, Harrison Road, and the Polwarth Corridor presented their concerns about excessive traffic volume, speeding, pedestrian safety, and aggressive driver behavior.
The presentations highlighted specific problems including a decade-long saga regarding safety improvements at Ashley Terrace, high traffic volumes on Polwarth Crescent with 42,515 vehicles weekly, and dangerous conditions on Harrison Road prior to the bridge closures. The increasing volume and traffic and size of vehicles driving through the area was emphasised.

ID opened the meeting and set out the procedure to ensure that a constructive and respectful discussion could take place. He then handed over to RM and VM who had prepared the structure of the meeting. Spokespeople for residents of 4 local areas would speak first, followed by a response from Councillor Jenkinson and an open discussion session.

Preliminary comments by RM summarised the extreme concern of residents about traffic in MDCC’s area with some issues going back 10 or more years, such as peak-hour congestion on N-S axes (especially Ashley Terrace, Harrison Road and the Polwarth Corridor of Yeaman Place, Polwarth Crescent and Merchiston Avenue), safety, rat-running, speeding etc.  Not all streets and not all residents have the same issues or agree on everything, and CEC’s new Active Travel Plan may bring some improvement, but due to crossing the canal and railway, residential streets have become north-south thoroughfares, including large volumes of arterial traffic merely passing through our area, but with their destinations elsewhere. An area-wide CEC plan is needed to mitigate the issues mentioned.

LH opened on behalf of Craiglockhart Primary School and the area around Ashley Terrace by detailing the difficulties experienced in getting traffic calming measures for Ashley Terrace, despite it being a school route. A saga of CEC promises and disappointments going back to June 2022 has not yet achieved any change despite several accidents and near-misses. She mentioned a recent increase in the number of vulnerable children attending mainstream school with little thought given to their increased safety needs and that road safety appeared to be getting worse, while until March 2025 only 1% of the roads budget was earmarked for road safety (in the March 2025 budget a further £6 million was allocated for that purpose). A recent speed check had shown speeds up to 65 mph mid-afternoon on Ashley Terrace.

Going forward her concerns were: increased traffic due to changes elsewhere, e.g. a possible traffic filter on Dalry Road, increasing driver aggression and little enforcement of the rules. and failure to deliver on promised improvements within a reasonable time frame. (See attached report)

Marley Henderson (MH) on behalf of the Merchiston Grove Traffic Group described the traffic problems in this narrow and cobbled street, which had now been exacerbated by the closure of the two bridges in Harrison Road, leading to a large volume of rat-running traffic avoiding the Slateford Road / Shandon Place traffic lights. Road rage incidents, aggression of drivers towards residents, speeding and the noise of heavy vehicles on the cobbles had impacted enormously on the lives of the residents, especially the more vulnerable, who were sometimes hardly able to cross the street at busy times, when up to 300 vehicles an hour had been counted and when noise levels had increased exponentially from 38 to over 70 dB. While the Slateford Road traffic lights have been adjusted to reduce queues and signs discouraging use of the street as a diversion are now installed, those who ignore these traffic moderation measures tend to speed through more aggressively. The residents want to see swift remedial action and regard the situation as an “accident waiting to happen.”

Clemens Kupke (CK) spoke for the Harrison Road residents. Before the closure of the canal and railway path bridges the volume and type of traffic on Harrison Road, including HGVs, had been unsustainable given the “dogleg” bend at the rail bridge and the narrow width and need for parking on what is a residential road. Here too there had been many incidents of road rage, speeding and damage to residents’ vehicles. A survey of nearby residents with 66 responses indicated that the majority felt unsafe around the road. They asked that the opportunity afforded by the bridge closure be used to rethink the traffic on and around Harrison Road, e.g. by introducing single file traffic over the bridges, pedestrian crossings, measures to increase safety on the bend, design changes or even a one-way system. The residents acknowledge the dangers of knock-on effect of any changes and are keen to work constructively across the area.

RM emphasised the need for detailed traffic data from surveys. This had been obtained for the “Polwarth Corridor” which VM then addressed: this is a long and very diverse route carrying over 42,500 vehicles a week, including 24,000 driving up Merchiston Avenue. In the main these are not local vehicles, often lorries and vans, but are travelling through and using these residential streets, partly due to GPS directions. Parents driving children to school also make up a significant share of peak-time traffic. The traffic volume is more than twice the number envisaged in the Edinburgh Street Design Guidance’s own Flow/Speed categorisation. These streets are functioning as arterial routes through the middle of a residential area – contrary to CEC’s own planning framework – and at times are genuinely dangerous to cross. Many parents delay allowing their children to walk to school unaccompanied for this reason. It seems that residents take second place to vehicles.  Unlike the parallel roads where there are some mitigations planned or in place. nothing has yet been done to improve conditions in this corridor.

Carol Ogilvie (CO) a long-time resident of Polwarth Crescent, also spoke to the increased volume of traffic and its negative effects on the neighbourhood, where there are growing numbers of residents, especially students and young families who walk and are most affected by increased exhaust pollution. The traffic increase is exacerbated by the closure of Harrison Road and likely by the introduction of the LEZ for central Edinburgh sending more diverted traffic our way. In addition, pavements are narrow and often obstructed by bins, hedges, traffic signs and more.

VM asked CEC for measures to be implemented urgently, and for CEC to use an approach like that in Leith with traffic counts and residents’ surveys to design an area-wide solution, which would include reducing the amount of inappropriate through traffic.

Councillor Jenkinson responded by firstly acknowledging the delivery challenges facing City of Edinburgh Council, explaining that while many transport policies and strategies have been developed, actual implementation has been slow due to resource constraints and complex processes. He noted that the council’s traffic team has limited staff capacity, and the TRO process can take 12-18 months to implement even small measures, while he acknowledged the need for an area-wide approach to address traffic issues across the four parallel north/south road corridors, rather than treating them in isolation.

Cllr Jenkinson stated that attending meetings like this encourages open dialogue. CEC is diverse and generates a range of ideas which are often not taken forward quickly enough.

As regards Ashley Terrace the delay to mitigations is disappointing and he considered that Harrison Road closure has affected it. The area is particularly susceptible to traffic displacement and, while reopening Harrison Road will return things to “normal”, this is not where we want to be. The Harrison Road bridge repair has taken longer than expected but when it reopens, he hoped that Merchiston Grove should improve. The Polwarth corridor needs traffic routed onto more appropriate roads, e.g. through feeding back requests to Google to change “short-cut” messages to drivers.

The lack of resources, of CEC and the police, and the processes with regard to road changes which are slow by design, make rapid change difficult but he would take up our issues.

With little time remaining in the meeting, ID invited residents’ questions. ID was keen to come away from this meeting by agreeing a positive way forward, including continuing dialog between MDCC, residents and CEC, and agreeing follow-up actions.

Residents mentioned the increased size and weight of cars, especially SUVs (see e.g. www.carsized.com) which increases the danger they pose. Cllr J responded that CEC is currently looking at relating parking charges to the size and weight of cars.

LH asked if Ashley Terrace road safety mitigations would definitely be funded? Cllr J: Yes, and £6.5 million annually had been allocated in CEC’s budget for road and school safety.

RM and VM thanked Cllr J, were pleased to hear that the roads budget had been increased, and that there was real interest in improvements and hoped that CEC would gather data, do what was possible to change GPS recommended routes and to make roads less attractive to inappropriate traffic.

Displacement traffic is both within and into our area – if CEC is serious about reducing traffic, radical measures including clear thresholds for traffic volumes are needed, and we hope Cllr J will push for them. Streets and safety matter to us all and we hope CEC will see MDCC and our residents as genuine collaborators.

ID thanked Cllr J and hoped CEC will now consider solutions to improve our local traffic problems; MDCC and residents would be very willing to discuss potential solutions constructively as solutions emerge from further investigations by CEC.

ID suggests forming an expanded group of residents to form a “traffic team” and invites those residents interested to contact VM and RM.

2. Police Report – Community Policing Teams for SW and SE Edinburgh were invited but were unable to attend due to operational pressures and no police report was received. ID is attending a police ward forum on March 18^th and asked to be informed of any issues residents would like him to raise.

3. Residents’ Issues Forum – Residents were invited to raise any new local issues of concern, but no additional issues were raised.

4. Minutes of MDCC Meeting on 17^th Feb 2026 (for approval). These were unanimously approved as a true record of the meeting. No matters arising.

5. Chair’s Report – Ian Doig, MDCC Chair. Chair’s written report had been circulated to all members. See link here. 

6. Planning Report – Mairianna Clyde (MC), Planning Lead. MC was unfortunately unable to attend due to illness. No major planning issues have arisen recently. At the next meeting it is hoped there will be an update on the Dalton scrapyard site on Yeaman Place, and the issue of vape shops and fire risks, following the recent vape shop fire in Glasgow.

7. Licensing Report – Gordon Cameron, Licensing Lead: Reported that no new licensing issues have arisen since the last meeting.

8. Treasurer’s Report – Frances Hawarden, MDCC treasurer was unable to attend. Her cash flow report showed a moderate balance of £1,857.28. A payment for Zoom Professional of £155.88 required authorisation before payment. Payment was approved unanimously.
Action: FH to arrange payment.

9. City Councillors’ Reports – All CEC Ward 9 and 10 Councillors are invited to attend; however, none were present (3 had sent apologies), so no reports were given at the meeting.

10. Other Reports and Correspondence – none

11. Any Other Business – BS had attended a meeting of EUCS (Edinburgh Union Canal Society) where plans for the replacement to the boathouse were discussed. It was also suggested that EUCS might contribute to a replacement for the broken MDCC noticeboard.
Action: VK to contact EUCS to discuss.

Meeting ended at 21:06