I have welcomed the decision by Dundee City Council to streamline the Traffic Regulation Order process, to speed up changes to waiting restrictions in the city in future.
The process of getting traffic regulations in place to improve parking and access for residents has been utterly torturous in the city in recent years – slow, bureaucratic and not customer-friendly.
As an example, Kinloch Park in the West End, next to the entrance to Ninewells Hospital, had single yellow lining agreed, following a site visit with most of the street’s residents, Head of Roads and Transportation and myself in December 2016. The agreed waiting restrictions to stop the street being used as a Ninewells overflow car park were finally put in place at the end of February 2019.
Whilst, I am relieved the work in Kinloch Park was finally in place, two years and two months to complete the process highlighted the need to cut through the bureaucracy of the system, streamline it and speed it up.
I raised the need to improve the Traffic Regulation Order process with the council’s Head of Democratic and Legal Services and am pleased that action has now been taken to tackle this issue. We simply cannot again have relatively simple traffic alterations taking 26 months to implement.
The council’s Head of Roads and Transportation has now advised me :
“The Traffic Regulation Order process has been streamlined and, after discussions with the Director of City Development, we will undertake to look at the introduction of the Consultation Stage being undertaken in advance of going to City Development Committee.
Ordinarily we would not progress with a Traffic Regulation Order if statutory consultees Police Scotland did not support a proposal.
Any streamlining will involve less City Development Committee time and speed up the process with less stages.”
I will be monitoring future work to ensure there is a genuine speeding up of Traffic Regulation Orders to ensure that residents across the city get faster action on improved parking and tackling parking obstruction issues more efficiently.