CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh

CEC election 2017 (May 4th)

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  1. crowriver
    Member

    Given that the SNP at Holyrood actually cut active travel spending once in office (only grudgingly restoring it after lots of demonstrations, political pressure, etc.) then the omens do not look good for council commitments beyond May 2017.

    I hope I'm mistaken, but my instinct is that if/when the SNP take control, we'll hear a lot about economic development, keeping the city moving, etc. This rhetoric being used to justify prioritising road resurfacing, and reducing funding for active travel.

    OTOH, maybe the very modest increase in council tax proposed by the SNP at Holyrood from next year will give a bit more leeway to Edinburgh so it can maintain 9% of the transport budget for cycling. If that is maintained, it will be a victory of sorts. If Labour were to get in again, maybe the budget percentage would rise again to 10%?

    Posted 8 years ago #
  2. chdot
    Admin

    "we'll hear a lot about economic development, keeping the city moving, etc."

    That's fine - as 'we' know there is plenty of evidence that more pedestrian areas improved cycle facilities etc. improve things for traders, residents and visitors.

    Posted 8 years ago #
  3. crowriver
    Member

    Sure, but evidence and rhetoric don't seem to sit easily with the SNP, for whatever reason. Maybe the 'our voters are motorists' reason?

    Posted 8 years ago #
  4. Murun Buchstansangur
    Member

    "(From Roseburn thread)

    The fact this is the only mention of cycling on his Twitter feed is rather telling (whether or not the behaviour of the cyclist was inconsiderate):

    Frank Ross @FrankRoss06
    Walking the dog on the shared path at Broomhouse. Verbally abused by cyclist for using THEIR path!

    1:58 a.m. - 22 Jan 2016"

    Rubbish dog walker/white painted bike sign observer & would-be Calton Hill despoiler Frank Ross is now SNP group leader & presumably putative Lord Provost. Lord help us.

    http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/frank-ross-takes-snp-leadership-from-sandy-howat-1-4054097

    Posted 8 years ago #
  5. gembo
    Member

    Lord provost is just a chain wearing ceremonial position. That would be fine. Council leader is the job he is aiming for

    Posted 8 years ago #
  6. HankChief
    Member

    I was musing over Andrew Burns proud response about CEC's record on supporting cycling and being the only Scottish LA where car use is dropping.

    I was trying to recall if I had seen/heard similar pride from the SNP on active travel.

    Appreciate that I might have confirmation bias but as a general rule it seems to me like the SNP haven't made as much of successes that have only come from Coalition policies (I. E. The 1% p.a. Funding rachet).

    Don't know why that would be...

    Posted 8 years ago #
  7. crowriver
    Member

    Judging from the Edinburgh SNP page on Farcebook, they only seem to be interested in telling everyone how great they and their candidates are, fundraisers, ceilidhs and so on. Very little on policy, what the councillors are actually doing, etc.

    I appreciate it's over a year until the council elections, and the focus is on Holyrood. Still surprised at how anodyne and bland the message is. There's very little of any substance for any undecided voters to go on.

    Posted 8 years ago #
  8. SRD
    Moderator

    https://carsickglasgow.wordpress.com/2016/03/10/edinburgh-snp-appoint-anti-cycling-clown-as-council-group-leader/

    (Slightly amused that my tweets figure so prominently as I'd have said I have had little to do with Ross - no real sense of him at all, although I had noticed that he's not acknowledged any of my recent tweets that I tagged him in eg the quote from Janet Sadiq-Khan:

    https://twitter.com/srdorman/status/708307528208277504

    Posted 8 years ago #
  9. acsimpson
    Member

    @crowriver, that sounds exactly like the material they produced prior to the general election. All about what a wonderful business person Michelle Thompson was and not a lot else. It turns out even that is a bag of lies. Sadly the voters will probably swallow an candidate they offe. And they don't seemtobea part keen on candidates capable of independent thought.

    Posted 8 years ago #
  10. Fountainbridge
    Member

    Can't say I've ever had a response from SNP's Adam McVey either (transport vice convenor).

    Posted 8 years ago #
  11. chdot
    Admin

    Just reviving.

    Posted 7 years ago #
  12. Morningsider
    Member

    I think PoP or SPOKES could handily nick the idea that the London Cycle Campaign had of getting candidates to sign up to a pledge on cycle funding (amongst other things), prior to the election. 10% of the transport budget on cycling seems like a good figure for Edinburgh.

    The LCC has a very good website all about this at:

    http://signforcycling.org/

    Posted 7 years ago #
  13. crowriver
    Member

    Well, there's already http://walkcyclevote.scot

    So, that could just be refocussed towards local council elections?
    It would be simple enough to get council candidates to sign up to the pledges, no?

    Or something similar on a local Spokes area level might work, but would take a lot of work to develop the site functionality...

    Posted 7 years ago #
  14. SRD
    Moderator

    There's also talk of setting up an Edinburgh space for cycling group.

    Along the lines of http://glasgow.space4cycling.scot

    Posted 7 years ago #
  15. chdot
    Admin

    From link, nice soundbite -

    "
    It’s about ‘Triple A’ infrastructure: space4cycling works for All Ages and Abilities

    "

    My concern is that there is a need to include pedestrian walking (as opposed to leisure walking) which is where walkcyclevote comes in.

    Local groups of that?

    Posted 7 years ago #
  16. sallyhinch
    Member

    We Walk, We Cycle, We Vote will probably return for the local elections (we're having a washup meeting to discuss it next month).

    In theory, yes, it would be simple to refocus the website to council candidates but don't underestimate the amount of work involved simply in gathering a list and then getting hold of contact details for each candidate in all 32 local authorities.

    There were lists published of some (not all) of the candidates for the major parties well ahead of the election this year which made it a bit easier to find them on twitter, facebook etc. (it was still very tricky to get email addresses for a lot of them though). I doubt we'll see similar publicity for council elections, so it's likely to be a question of waiting for the election notices to be published about 6 weeks beforehand and then a concentrated data entry effort to get them recorded and some sort of contact details found for them.

    There were efforts to crowdsource this information for these elections but for my purposes they were too little, too late (I did share what I had compiled with the others though)

    In general, the more candidates were contacted and the more active their electorate, the more likely they were to respond to the three asks for the Walk Cycle Vote campaign, so getting contact details - and especially social media contact information - is pretty key to making this sort of pledging campaign work. I think that's why we had almost twice the response in Edinburgh as any other region, with South Scotland coming in second, probably because that's where both Suzanne and I are based, hence driving a bit more activity in that region (showing that it doesn't take all that much, especially for the list candidates)

    Any volunteers who may have some free time around late March, early April next year and who would like to help collate information, get in touch!

    Posted 7 years ago #
  17. chdot
    Admin

    "but don't underestimate the amount of work involved simply in gathering a list and then getting hold of contact details for each candidate in all 32 local authorities"

    I certainly don't, but I don't think Walk Cycle Vote Central (is that more than parts of two people??) should promise (or be expected) to do data gathering across 32 areas.

    Better to make early appeals to all the orgs in Walk Cycle Vote to form local groups to undertake this work. Which might result in not much data gathering (am I being pessimistic??).

    I am confident that Edinburgh would be well covered plus Borders, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Fife(?)

    It ought to be relatively simple to contact all existing councillors and ask a) if they expect to stand again and b) will they sign up to Walk Cycle Vote.

    Then contact parties and explain why it's in their interest to get candidates to contact WCV...

    Posted 7 years ago #
  18. Frenchy
    Member

    Any volunteers who may have some free time around late March, early April next year and who would like to help collate information, get in touch!

    I'm likely to be game.

    Posted 7 years ago #
  19. sallyhinch
    Member

    @chdot - this will form some of my feedback at our next washup meeting.

    @Frenchy - noted!

    Posted 7 years ago #
  20. crowriver
    Member

    @sallyhinch, I wasn't suggesting that a small team do all that work alone. Just that the technical side and the pledge framework are already there.

    chdot's suggestion is a good one: a big list of stakeholders there who could reasonably be expected to collect data on a local and/or national basis.

    Some party branches have already chosen council candidates or are in the process of doing so, e.g. I happen to know Glasgow Greens have chosen about half their candidates already. (Strangely I don't know what's happening with Edinburgh Greens but I haven't been to a branch meeting in ages). Not that you really need to worry about the Greens being on board of course... :-)

    For Edinburgh, getting answers from the SNP and the Tories is likely to be important, as I have a feeling both parties will do well next year. I'm hopeful that we'll have at least the same number of Green councillors as currently, maybe even a few more. Labour might not be so fortunate, and the Lib Dems are an unknown quantity at the moment.

    Posted 7 years ago #
  21. chdot
    Admin

    "the Lib Dems are an unknown quantity at the moment"

    Not true, there are two! -

    http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/councillors/specificParty/9/liberal_democrat_group

    Posted 7 years ago #
  22. chdot
    Admin

    "I have a feeling both parties will do well next year"

    I'm not going to pretend I think that WalkCycleVote will sway too many voters, but it's clear that people on here were happy to 'split' votes for Holyrood and also vote for candidates rather than parties (in some case). LG elections also use PR (a different version).

    It's not unlikely that many of the people who go to PoP will choose at least one of their votes according to candidates' views on ActiveTravel and cycle infrastructure spending.

    So this could all influence the results - individual councillors and size of party groups.

    Posted 7 years ago #
  23. gembo
    Member

    Turnout in local elections is sometimes as low as 30 per cent. Seats can be one by small numbers of votes.

    Posted 7 years ago #
  24. Frenchy
    Member

    @Frenchy - noted!

    Cheers - PM me if you want better contact info, or anything.

    Posted 7 years ago #
  25. wingpig
    Member

    Is there any chance of getting the council to forward WCV's email address to anyone applying to stand for councillorship?

    Posted 7 years ago #
  26. chdot
    Admin

    "

    SCOTTISH Labour leader Kezia Dugdale is considering controversial internal reforms that could see a cull of the party’s “deadwood” councillors.

    Changes to the system of re-selecting the party’s 350-plus councillors are being mulled over ahead of next year’s local government election.

    "

    http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14493626.Scottish_Labour_plan_cull_of__deadwood__local_councillors

    May not affect Edinburgh as much as some places.

    Posted 7 years ago #
  27. chdot
    Admin

  28. daisydaisy
    Member

    Reading that from Cllr Jim Orr, the prospects for cycling don't look good if the SNP takes control of Edinburgh Council.

    Posted 7 years ago #
  29. Stickman
    Member

    It's shocking if true. Given the source, I'm inclined to believe it is.

    Posted 7 years ago #
  30. chdot
    Admin

    "... I'm inclined to believe it is"

    Yes, also looks as though he doesn't expect to get back in the party. If SNPCentral isn't taking this (allegation/s) seriously (which would appear to be the case), all a bit sad/scandalous.

    Posted 7 years ago #

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