Slides That Follow Your Voice: Scottish Accent Planning Hearing

Slide 1: Light the Path, Not the Sky

0:17Thank you, convener. My name is Fiona, I live at fourteen Kelvin Terrace, I'm a civil engineer by trade, and I'm speaking tonight as a resident, not for my firm, which I'm uh, obliged to say and which is also true. [chuckles]

0:31I want to speak in support of the footbridge, with two conditions, and I'll try to do it in the five minutes, because I've sat where you're sitting, on a different committee, and I know what the seventh speaker feels like from the chair.

Slide 2: In support of the footbridge. With two conditions

0:45First, why I support it. The river splits this town in two, and at the moment the only crossing between the road bridge and the weir is the old rail bridge, which is one point four kilometres upstream and has thirty-six, no, thirty-eight steps at each end. I counted them with my mother last year, who is seventy-nine and who gave up at twenty-two. [laughs]

Slide 3: Why I support it

1:08That means a child on the north side who goes to the school on the south side either walks two point eight kilometres round or gets driven, and about three hundred of them get driven, every morning, down a street that was built for carts. The footbridge takes that to four hundred metres and no steps. That's the whole case, to be honest. The rest is engineering.

Slide 4: A child on the north side, going to school

1:32The engineering is fine. I've read the design report, all two hundred and twelve pages of it, which I suspect makes me one of about four people in this room. Three, the convener's telling me. Fine. Three. The deck is three metres wide, which is enough for two prams and a bicycle to pass, the gradient is one in twenty-one, which meets the access standard with room to spare, and the piers are outside the normal channel, so the flood risk assessment, which I went through twice, holds up.

Slide 5: The engineering is fine

2:04I have one small issue with the scour protection at the north pier, and I've put it in writing, and the applicant has answered it, and the answer is right enough.

2:14Right, now the, hang on, I've lost my page. Conditions. Yes. Now, my two conditions, and these are the reason I'm standing here rather than just sending a letter.

Slides 6-7: Two conditions / Condition one: the lighting

2:26Condition one. The lighting. The design has six columns at five metres, which will light the deck well and also light the bedrooms of the houses on Kelvin Terrace, including mine, from dusk until the timer switches them off at midnight. I'm not asking for darkness. I'm asking for bollard lighting at one metre, which lights the surface, costs about forty percent less, and lets my neighbour Mrs Doyle, who is eighty-four and goes to bed at nine, go to bed at nine.

2:56The applicant's answer is that it's a safety matter. I'd say a well-lit path is safer than a well-lit sky, and I've got the standard here that says the same. I did bring the standard. It's a hundred and forty pages. I'm not going to read it. I was going to make a joke about that and it's gone. Anyway, it's here, it says what I said.

Slide 8: A well-lit path is safer than a well-lit sky

3:17Condition, the second, condition two. Condition two. The north landing. As drawn, the ramp comes down onto the pavement at the corner of Kelvin Terrace and the lane, where the pavement is one point one metres wide and where the bins go out on a Tuesday. Two prams, a bicycle, and a bin do not fit in one point one metres, not fit in one point one metres. I've measured it.

Slide 9: Condition two: the north landing

3:44I've drawn an alternative, which swings the ramp eight metres east onto the green, costs the applicant one tree, which they can replace, and gives you a landing four metres wide. It's on the sheet I've handed in. It's not elegant. It works.

4:02That's me. Build the bridge, light the path and not the sky, and move the landing onto the green. [sighs] She did offer, my mother. Step twenty-two. She's very firm about it. To be honest I think she just wants to meet the convener. She's heard a lot about you. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you.