STATISTICS for an upcoming travel and environment committee meeting show that the budget for road improvement has gone up by 22% since last year.
Pavement spending, however, is staying the same though a wider area will be covered compared to 2024.
This comes as an extra £12.5m has been allocated for roads and infrastructure, with the council promising to resurface almost half a million square metres of roads.
Campaigners for safe walking, Living Streets, have urged locals to contact councillors if they do not believe that the 0% increase in spending for footways is good enough.
In the agenda for this week’s Transport and Environment Committee meeting, councillors will discuss the breakdown of the 2025/26 budget in relation to roads and infrastructure spending.
It has been confirmed that an additional £12.5m in capital will be used in this area, which was also allocated in the 2024/25 budget, and brings the total up to over £25m.
This additional spending is planned to be spent on “paths, pavements and road condition”.
Edinburgh local Harry Williams compared this spending to last year’s, pointing out that while the total planned resurfacing area has gone down overall, footways have been allocated more than before.
71,962 square metres of pavements are set to be resurfaced, up over 40% compared to last year’s 50,714 square metres.
Despite this, spending for roads has increased by almost 22%, whereas money for pavements has stayed at £3.5m.
Most of the money will be spent on surface treatment, with a large portion also dedicated to full resurfacing and strengthening.
Campaign for safer pavements, Living Streets Edinburgh, posted about this data last week, saying: “The roads budget is on the agenda for next week’s Transport and Environment Committee (http://bit.ly/427J1Rm Item 8.1).
“It seems roads (carriageway) spending will rise 21% – but 0% increase for footways.
“If you don’t think this is good enough, please tell your councillor.”
Also to be discussed in the meeting is a bid for a grant that would support a study for continental-style zebra crossings, which was refused twice last year.
These crossings don’t use the flashing beacons on many zebra crossings across the UK, and are significantly cheaper so can be installed quickly and more frequently.
