We wave some good news on our work to address the traffic concerns in Bo’ness Road.

Thank you to everyone who came along to last week’s public meeting with the Transport Convener. We know people left frustrated at her lack of willingness to consider Bo’ness Road as a special case.

However, immediately after the public meeting, the local Neighbourhood Partnership met. This is a group made up of councillors and local community representatives. During that meeting, we reviewed the next round of community funding which is available from the Council for us to prioritise small local projects. This included that ‘local roads fund’.

The local transport manager, who sat through the public meeting and heard the views of local people, recommended that money be allocated to fund 50% of the expected cost to install a full pedestrian crossing on Bo’ness Road.

This sets aside £20,000 and paves the way to have discussions with other organisations like Transport Scotland about match funding. We can also use this money to make attempts to negotiate a contribution from the Council’s road safety team.

We are certain that we are in this situation as a direct result of the efforts by the community and the passion and concern shown on this issue at the public meetings. We will be keeping up the pressure on how to find the rest of the funds.