Councillor Val Walker writes about revitalising our town and local centres with a 20-minute neighbourhood approach:
Being able to live well locally is incredibly important to our quality of life. Our town and local centres play a huge role in daily lives. Whether you live round the corner or in the surrounding area, many of us meet friends and family, shop, work, use libraries and other local services, and enjoy culture around our high streets.
The importance of town and local centres has been a leading thought in updating one of our key strategies to help people across Edinburgh live in places that are healthier, greener, more vibrant and inclusive.
The updated 20-minute neighbourhood strategy outlines our support for local living to give more people more choice within their neighbourhood, while also making it easier to travel further to reach the other services and facilities they need on public transport and by active travel. It’s one that many communities already enjoy, but sadly isn’t a universal experience for all of our residents.
Local centres that are easy to access and great places to spend time can boost our own health, help us to be more physically active, and make it easier to connect with the other people in our communities.
This work is already well underway in Craigmillar, Muirhouse and Pennywell where our regeneration projects have enhanced the local centres with the delivery of new community facilities, shops, and homes.
They will soon be joined by the new Community Hub at Macmillan Square, which will feature an early years centre, library, skills hub and expanded North Edinburgh Arts facility.
New active travel links with green spaces and areas for socialising are also being planned to make it easier to access the local centres and create a more pleasant place to live and visit.
We are also approaching the next stages of an exciting town centre revitalisation programme in Dalry and Portobello. These town centres are built around busy main roads with compromised and cramped public spaces.
Our engagement work in these areas earlier this year presented a real appetite for change and ideas for making local spaces more people-friendly. These ideas have helped shaped some of the very initial plans for development, which we will be presenting to the community through consultation next year. We strongly welcome everyone’s feedback.
This is our 20-minute neighbourhood approach in action, ensuring services and facilities are close to people, making them easier to access and helping make walking, wheeling and cycling to be the natural choice for shorter journeys.
If we work together, we can start to see how all residents throughout Edinburgh can enjoy a more thriving city that brings communities together in cleaner, greener spaces.