Placemaking – Page 9 – Planning Edinburgh

Edinburgh Wayfinding project

The Council along with other key partners is working on delivering a Wayfinding system for Edinburgh, similar to other towns and cities in the UK. The aim of the project is to encourage walking and the exploration of the City for residents and visitors.

What is a wayfinding system?

A Wayfinding system is a number of mapping products such as digital, printed and on-street maps which help people to orient themselves and navigate from place to place. The idea is to make getting around the city as simple as possible.

Clear and consistent mapping forms the basis of any Wayfinding product and the Council has been working to create a bespoke digital map that reflects Edinburgh’s unique identity and highlights walking times, footpaths, accessible routes, travel information and key areas and places throughout the City.

The wayfinding project

The project is at the design stage and the map of Edinburgh will be completed by the end of September 2017.

We hope that the project will provide the city with a mapping resource to create a range of Wayfinding products: printed maps, on-street information (including bus shelters and tram stops) as well as on-line to make getting around the city even easier, to encourage walking and to help people to explore the city. The mapping resource is royalty-free so can be used and adapted by others to help improve the information we have and for communities to map and promote their own area.

What happens next?

The next phase of the work is to identify funding and partner projects. We’ll be working on this in the coming months and will keep you up to date here on the blog.

If you’d like to know more about the project, get in touch with the project manager Anna Grant at anna.grant@edinburgh.gov.uk

Reviewing the Edinburgh Design Guidance – your views

The Edinburgh Design Guidance is being reviewed and we’d like your comments on the proposed changes.

The revised draft guidance has a number of key changes including the Parking Standards (for new developments), advice on Build to Rent Housing and protected views to the Forth Bridge.

Have your say.

You can give us comments using the online survey, which also contains a link to the draft revised Guidance.

We are also holding two consultation workshops on the Design Guidance on Monday 15 May, in the City Chambers. If you would like to attend, please email us the following details to spatial.policy@edinburgh.gov.uk

name
contact details
organisation (where relevant), and
workshop preference – 15:30-17:00 or 18:00-17:30

Consultation on the guidance will close on 2 June 2017.

Southside Place Standard Online Survey

Hello All,

Last week (22^nd and 26^th November) we ran a couple of Place Standard events at Southside Community Centre. The events were generally well attended, with some really good feedback from both sessions.

What an experience! Thanks @planningedin and #southsidecommunity doing #placestandard aka #planners listen to people! pic.twitter.com/3zEDoPG0TQ

— Lenka Svorcova (@LenkaSvorcova) November 22, 2016

Following on from these events, we are now running a short online survey using the questions from the Place Standard tool, which, if you live, work or spend time in the Southside, we would love it if you could spare 5 -10 minutes to complete it.

Just a reminder of what the Place Standard is, it is a tool to evaluate the quality of a place. There are 14 questions which cover the social and physical elements of a place. Each question is given a score out of 7 based on what people think and feel, 7 being excellent and 1 being poor.

The results of the events and the online survey will help to inform future policies and change in the area, so it is vitally important that you have your say on what needs to be improved.

Thank you in advance for taking time out to complete the survey.

George.

The Southside Place Standard

Hello,

The Southside Placemaking Exercise

The City of Edinburgh Council in partnership with various organisations from the Southside, will be holding a Placemaking exercise to get your views on what you think works well and what doesn’t work so well in the Southside.

How to get involved

We will be carrying out a placemaking exercise using the Place Standard tool which has been developed by A&DS, the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland. We will take groups of people through the exercise in facilitated sessions. We’d like as many of the community as possible to get involved to help make the process work.

generic-place-wheel — The Place Standard wheel shows how people scored different aspects of their area. 1 being very poor, 7 being excellent. (This is an illustrative example and not the scores for the Southside).

This is the third time we have used this process, so we know it is a successful tool. It will help inform the Town Centre Supplementary Guidance and the Southside Locality Improvement Plan.

When

Tuesday 22^nd November

1^st Session 17:30
2^nd Session 18:45

Saturday 26^th November

1^st Session 10:00
2^nd Session 11:00

Where

Southside Community Centre

Please let us know if you’re interested in coming along to one of the sessions by contacting george.oldroyd@edinburgh.gov.uk

What is Placemaking?

Places that work well for the community have a significant influence on the health and well-being of individuals. The opposite is also true – places that do not work well have a negative impact on health and well-being. The aim of placemaking is to create successful places.

We can measure the success of a place through the use of a tool called the Place Standard . This consists of a series of indicators that allow the community to assess things like access to greenspace, general maintenance of an area and perception of safety. This tells us where a place is succeeding and where it is failing.

The Scottish Government’s policy on Architecture and Place – Creating Places sets the context for how we can deliver great places.

What will happen after the exercise?

This process will give us lots of information about the Southside and how it works well as a town and where it doesn’t and we can use this to inform what we do as a Council and how new development can support the qualities of the Southside.

This is not just another consultation, it is an opportunity to make a difference to the area in which you live, work and visit.

Information regarding these events is also available on the City of Edinburgh Council’s consultation hub.

Corstorphine Place Standard

Hello,

Luke and Katie have gone back to university and have left their successful Planning Edinburgh blog in the capable hands of myself (George) and Emma. We are planning students from Newcastle University and are here for a year, so keep your eyes peeled for blog updates on what is happening in the city in the coming months.

The first event I would like to tell you about is the Place Standard activity that I attended on the night of Tuesday 23 August in Kirk Loan Hall at Corstorphine Old Parish Church. The idea of the event was to give people an opportunity to assess a variety of aspects of the place in which they live.

The Place Standard is a tool to evaluate the quality of a place, and it is easy to use. There are 14 questions which cover the social and physical elements of a place. Each question is given a score out of 7 based on what people think and feel, 7 being excellent and 1 being poor. The interesting part of this exercise comes during the discussion of each question, because everyone around each table has to go agree on a score for each question. So if you have two people who are polar opposite on an issue such as facilities and amenities, it does create some entertaining discussion.

Once all 14 questions had been answered and eventually agreed upon, the results were drawn onto a simple diagram which can be seen below:

Corstorphine Diagram As you can see, the people who attended are very positive about their area. Although, it is also clear that traffic and parking is a big issue. That is why we do this exercise, it is easy to see what is working well and what needs to be improved upon, and for people to give their views and have a chance to express their feelings about the place in which they live and be able to show them a visual representation of what they think of Corstorphine at the end of the activity. I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and it was great to see people feeling empowered and listening to what they had to say.

There are more Place Standard events coming up if you would like to get involved.

Corstorphine Placemaking 1 — Deep in discussion…

Corstorphine Placemaking 2 — Showing the people the completed diagram based on what they had said.

Anyway that’s all for now folks.

George.