Scottish highways officers have welcomed the fact Scotland’s manual for streets allows them flexibility in setting road widths and visibility standards.

The consultation draft of Designing Streets provides Scottish Government policy on road design that aims to bring about ‘a step change in how streets are designed’, highlighting that pedestrians’ needs take precedence.

However, the Society of Chief Officers for Transportation in Scotland commented that ‘it is good the document doesn’t simply replace local authority design guidelines and specifications’.

Ken Morrison, chair of SCOTS roads committee, said it was positive that Designing Streets, produced by consultants WSP, allowed local authorities ‘leeway in setting standards that are appropriate for the different demands placed on different local networks.’

The document, as Scottish Government policy, would ‘have teeth, forcing road engineers and planners to change the way they work,’ he said.

But he welcomed the recognition in the draft document that ‘local standards and design guidance are important design tools’. SCOTS wants to lead a national response to the call in Designing Streets for councils to adopt new standards embracing its principles.

Morrison said: ‘We have contacted Homes for Scotland, representing developers, with a view to doing this nationally rather than every authority trying to re-invent the wheel.’

SCOTS believe local guidelines on features such as carriageway widths and the junction radii ‘need to be better aligned across Scotland, while recognising what’s right for an Edinburgh C road is different to a C road in rural Aberdeenshire’.

SCOTS also supported the decision by WSP, following consultation, not to broaden out Designing Streets so that it applies to all roads, and not only residential streets (Surveyor, 15 May). The document says merely that its principles ‘may be applicable to high streets and lightly-trafficked lanes in rural areas’.