Spaces for People: moving forward

How we got your views

Commonplace consultation

Public suggestions and comments on the SfP programme were gathered between 29 May and 29 June 2020 using the ‘Commonplace’ online tool. Information collected was used to prioritise further schemes being brought forward.

Public, business and stakeholder consultation

We wanted to get views from as many people as possible on what they thought about spaces for people measures and how we might move forward. We were in a lockdown period when the consultation was carried out so we used different ways to get information to and get views from a range of people.

We had surveys on our online consultation hub aimed at

  • residents
  • businesses
  • stakeholders like Police Scotland.

We made sure the consultation survey was available in different formats if people needed it

  • print
  • large print
  • Braille
  • translation into other languages.

We also produced a video in British Sign Language on the project website to further widen access for people with hearing loss.

We advertised the consultation widely across the city using:

  • social media
  • radio
  • lamp post signage and bus shelters adverts in all wards
    • outside supermarkets
    • on shopping streets
    • close to parks
    • on major bus routes.

This meant we reached people while they

  • made essential journeys
  • were at home
  • or using mobile phones and other devices which majority of people in Edinburgh use.

Read more aboout the public, business and stakeholder consultaiton

Market research

We used independent consultants to carry out market research to complement the online consultation responses. This allowed us to get a statistically representative sample of opinions based on Edinburgh's popultation demographic. By statistically representative, this means that if we asked everyone in Edinburgh, the views given by the sample of people would be almost the same, There is a 95% probability of reflecting what everyone in Edinburgh would say.

What we asked

In the online questionnaire and the market research, we focused on three key areas

  • how much people supported or opposed keeping the measures from strongly approve to strongly disapprove
  • what people felt were the main benefits or disadvantages of keeping the measures
  • which measures people would especially like to keep or remove.

We also asked

  • what forms of transport they had used on streets with measures in place
  • how they had travelled around Edinburgh before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

As well as the set questions, people were able to comment on measures.

We got responses from

  • around 17,600 residents 
  • 180 businesses
  • 28 stakeholders.

We are using the information to inform recommendations on which schemes we could keep, improve or remove.