Does it say “or email” anywhere?
It SHOULD…
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Infrastructure
Holyrood Park: paths, crossings and closures
(229 posts)-
Posted 1 year ago #
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@ejstubbs. I also found it hard to distinguish between the various objectives/strategies etc and decide on a priority, the implication, I suppose, if an objective is selected by respondents as a 7 then HES may ignore that.
I found the template Spokes response quite handy and was a good basis for ordering priorities and adding extra information. It can be summed up as: shut the through roads and open Radical Road path.
Posted 1 year ago # -
@ DuddingstonDomestique: Thanks, I'll have another last go using that as a template.
Posted 1 year ago # -
@ejstubbs: Get rid of the through motor traffic and the metal security fencing, do your best to protect the wellbeing of the plants and animals that live there, and help people to understand and respect the place when they go there.
It's all a bit Richmond Park in London, full of deer, people on bikes, mental drivists, and equally mental pro-motoring policing.
Posted 1 year ago # -
https://www.historicenvironment.scot/about-us/news/a-new-future-for-edinburghs-holyrood-park/
While the Plan does not cover rock risk, specialist geotechnical engineers have completed a re-assessment of risk and potential mitigating measures in relation to parts of the Radical Road and other areas. HES plans to improve access in spring 2025, where this can be done safely, at the southern end from the Hawse to the northern end of South Quarry. This area includes Hutton’s Section and Hutton’s Rock, together with the quarry in which climbing is permitted.
However:
The Strategic Plan does not include the final Movement Strategy for the Park, which is still being developed in collaboration with The City of Edinburgh Council and will align to their City Mobility Plan 2030. Additional, detailed surveys are required to inform the plans for future traffic movement and active travel, ensuring a sustainable future for the Park.
Posted 1 year ago # -
So, Historic Environment Scotland can immediately fence off a historic trail in case some gets hurt...but is happy to maintain high-speed through traffic in the park for years so some paperwork can be done.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I've had a lot of trouble with temporary closures in the park affecting cycle access. For the Marathon and Beltane festivals access has been prevented during the evening commute period with no prior notice or diversion. The offroad path is the only to the city east, and cycling in busy diverted traffic on Horse Wynd is not something many will accept.
It seems the extent of the closures to cycles isn't being fully established by HES at event application stage. There is also a Core Path running through the park, which HES claim is not a right of way as Holyrood Park is exempt, yet Scotways advise a Section 11 order is required (similar to Radical Road).
On submitting a complaint, they have made their website page more visible but continue to plan a closure to cycles from 4pm on October 31st.
This will be more of a problem if the plans to close the road to Cars goes ahead. Will cycles be prevented from using the road every time there is an event?
Posted 1 year ago # -
Finally the park have acknowledged they don't have the direct power to close the core path to pedestrians and cycles for events.
Historic Environment Scotland (HES) acknowledges that a Section 11 exemption notice would be required to close or restrict access to the Core Path route which enters the Park at Dumbiedykes pedestrian entrance before following the Queen’s Drive, Galloping Glen to exit the Park at either Horse Wynd or following the Back Walk to exit onto Croft An Righ Lane. We would expect an event organiser wishing to close or restrict this route to follow the appropriate procedure and would encourage the event organiser to engage with the relevant community or public forums prior to doing so.
In respect of the need to apply for a Section 11 exemption out with this specific Core Path route, there is no requirement for an application to be made in the circumstances discussed. As you may be aware, access rights are not exercisable on land where public access is prohibited, excluded or restricted by other statute(s) (s6(1)(d) of the 2003 Act). Therefore, where access has been restricted pursuant to statute (i.e. the 1971 Regulations), access rights under the 2003 Act will not apply. On that basis, no application under section 11 is required. This is consistent with the City of Edinburgh Council’s own guidance which notes that Section 11 exemptions would not normally be used "where access is already restricted by other measures such as byelaws.”.
Hopefully there will be access via Croft-an-Righ for people heading home on Samhuinn. Last year was a real mess, with security telling people to go cycle on the gridlocked main road in the dark.
Posted 11 months ago # -
First(?) cycleway diversion for a Holyrood park event has been confirmed on their page: https://www.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-place/places/holyrood-park/external-event-notices/ and it will now be from 5pm instead of 4pm.
It's not perfect, but I think not having to makea right turn under the railway bridge at Abbeyhill will make a big difference https://i.imgur.com/Et6u8Cy.jpeg
The Holyrood Park Strategic Plan says they want Active Travel to be the main method of transit in the park... hopefully they mean this.
Posted 10 months ago # -
“
On Monday, July 14, work will commence to build protective infrastructure that will allow pedestrians to use the pavement only, with HES aiming to complete the work by the end of the month. Cyclists will need to dismount if they wish to use the route.
“
(I know this was covered on a different thread, can’t remember which.)
Posted 2 months ago # -
Amazing that they have limitless time, money and resource to throw at mitigating a very small risk.
Any yet somehow there's no money or will to provide proper pedestrian crossings. Nor a proper bike lane. Nor just shutting out intrusive, dangerous and damaging through-traffic...
...for actual high risks
Posted 2 months ago # -
Edinburgh’s Radical Road is set to partially re-open next year, after its closure nearly seven years ago due to rockfall.
A report before Edinburgh city councillors says that Historic Environment Scotland (HES), which has responsibility for Arthur’s Seat, plans to reopen part of the route early next year.The stretch between the Hawse to the northern end of the South Quarry would be opened
I don't know where the Hawse and South Quarry are.
Posted 1 week ago # -
The Hawse is the bealach above Pollock Halls between Salisbury Crags and Arthur's Seat (so the east terminus of the Radical Road)
The South Quarry is not very far along at all, 1 or 200m along at most.
I'd imagine this is a minimal concession to climbers who have been amongst the most vocal protestors to the continued closure, as South Quarry is the only part of Salisbury Crags where climbing is allowed. Divide and conquer...
Posted 1 week ago # -
@fimm, The Hawse is just near where the southern end of the Radical Road starts, and South Quarry is the rectangular section quarried out of the crags just to the northwest.
Posted 1 week ago # -
I wondered if that was the Hawse. Thank you.
Murun, I'm pretty sure that Mountaineering Scotland is one of the groups involved in objecting to the closure of the Radical Road. They are not going to be mollified by 200m of access to the quarry.
Posted 1 week ago # -
@fimm, hopefully not but they have previously called it out as possible and desirable:
https://www.mountaineering.scot/news/welcome-update-on-future-of-radical-road
Of course, that was almost exactly 1 year ago. Festina lente must be the motto of Scottish officialdom
Posted 1 week ago # -
The last sentence at that link is
We will continue to participate in HES’s Radical Road Working Group, to assist where we can, and to maintain the momentum to open up more of the historic path.
(emphasis mine).From their website:
Mountaineering Scotland is the organisation that represents hill walkers, climbers, mountaineers and snowsports tourers in Scotland. We campaign on your behalf to protect Scotland's mountain landscapes and safeguard access rights.
They are probably the only organisation that will campaign for climbers to have access to the quarry; but they don't just represent climbers, and will continue to be involved with campaigns for access to the whole Radical Road.In some ways, this is a particularly important precedent to not set from the point of view of a typical Mountaineering Scotland member, who is likely to go into environments which have some degree of danger. If a landowner can restrict access on the basis that a bit of cliff might fall on someone, where does that stop? Are we going to be banned from the whole of the Cullin, or from climbing on the north face of Ben Nevis, on the basis that rocks might fall off?
Posted 1 week ago # -
Hopefully now that the milquetoast management types in HES who created this sorry situation in the first place have accepted the principle that parts of the path can re-open without CHAOS, further progress should not be so difficult or protracted.
Posted 1 week ago # -
I note that the EEN article repeats HES' statement in their update of July this year, namely that, pending the re-opening, "park users can...pre-book ranger guided access to this area."
Presumably this was deemed safe because the rangers have a force field which protects them, and the park users being guided, from falling rocks...
Although I haven't done any serious climbing anywhere since lockdown (for various reasons, including dispersal of my regular partners) I will look forward to being able to spend some time pottering about on the rock in the South Quarry. It's a pleasant place on a sunny afternoon and has been denied to us for too long. (I wonder if I can remember where I put my permit from HES to climb there? Then again, I wonder if it even really matters, since I'd never been asked to produce in the past...)
Posted 1 week ago #
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