By Stuart Harrow, director of transportation at Dougall Baillie Associates
EDINBURGH is justifiably proud of what the city offers: a great quality of life, a beautiful green environment, good connectivity and a world-renowned natural, cultural and built heritage. It is an enviable place to live.
And its City Plan 2030 aims to keep it that way as the capital continues to expand, with the expectation that new homes will be built to the highest emissions quality standards in resilient, connected neighbourhoods, in the right locations, with the right infrastructure.
That is why, when our firm, Dougall Baillie Associates, were called upon to provide a Transport Assessment for the huge new 950-plus home development at Edinburgh Gateway, up-to-the-minute thinking was required to align compatibly with the city’s stated policies.
The Gateway project, ambitious though it is, is more akin to a city centre development although it is situated far out on the western outskirts, well past the traditional suburbs and much closer to the airport than to the castle.
Granted planning permission subject to certain conditions at the end of last year, the project will deliver a rich mix of private sale housing, homes which are built specifically for rental and a substantial contribution to the city’s affordable housing provision. It will also feature a new hotel with in excess of 170 bedrooms.
But, unlike developments of the past, which have been heavily-skewed towards car use, and the expectation that each household would have two in the drive, the Gateway is focused with on a high-density, walkable environment.
As well as cycling, pedestrian, bus, tram and train transport options, it reflects the city’s framework of characterful streets and attractive public spaces. The design draws on the site’s past, and the agrarian pattern of meadows and fields.
What differentiates it from what has gone before, however, is the fact that, although it will have close to 1,000 residential units, the City Plan provides for only 250 parking spaces and the proposal, in fact, suggests just 193.
This will be a crucial factor in defining the demographic of the Gateway and, indeed, of future 20-minute neighbourhoods where residents can fulfil their day-to-day needs within a short walk or cycle ride of the amenities they require.
One of the standard criticisms of such schemes is that, if adequate public transport provision is not in place, they can become unworkable and lead to the sort of social isolation experienced in the old, post-war housing schemes.
That will be far from the case at the Gateway, which will have an embarrassment of riches in terms of transport, including direct access to Edinburgh Gateway rail/tram interchange, which offers train services to the city, Fife and the airport.
The tram is the obvious option for people working in the city centre, taking just 11 minutes from Gateway to Waverley, and a short walk to the busy Maybury Junction which will give residents the choice of some 20 different bus services.
There will also be direct access to the Gyle, Edinburgh’s most established shopping centre offering retailers including Marks and Spencer, Morrisons and a wide range of outlets, specialist shops, and food and drinks venues.
The planning application for the Gateway, lodged last summer, has been recommended to be granted planning consent and its proposals illustrate the council’s determination to deliver high-quality development within the parameters of its longer-term goals and policies.
These include radically changing the way residents move around the city with the Gateway creating an excellent opportunity to show how that can sustainably be achieved.
