CIHT Scotland Region held its first Highland Conference in Inverness.  The conference was attended by over 40 delegates from across the country in what is hoped will become an annual event on the region’s calendar.

 

A keynote address was provided by Peter Dickinson, Chair of the CIHT Creating Better Streets Steering Group, who spoke about the recent CIHT research on shared space and the Creating Better Streets report published in January of this year.

 

Conference delegates then heard about the practicalities of street design.  Dr Nazan Kocak of the Transport Research Institute at Edinburgh Napier University spoke about the recently published City of Edinburgh Council Street Design Guidance.  This was followed by a presentation about the challenges of implementation by Scott Ramsay of Aberdeen City Council, who spoke about the Broad Street Public Realm works currently being implemented in the city.

 

The afternoon session focused on the needs of individual users.  Rowena Colpitts of Sustrans spoke about the consultation and participation approaches that the charity adopts when working with local communities to develop new layouts.  The barriers faced by visually impaired people when using shared space was described from a very candid and human perspective by Sandy Taylor, National Federation of the Blind in Scotland.  The session was rounded off with a highly informative and entertaining presentation from Jess Read of Witteveen+Bos, who spoke about the iWalk project in Bristol.

 

Outgoing CIHT Scotland Chair, Richard Llewellyn said: 

 

“I’m absolutely delighted with the way today’s conference has run.  At the start of this year, our goal as a committee was to provide high quality CPD opportunities and to provide a major event for our members in the north of our region.  This conference has truly achieved that, and I’d like to thank our attendees, speakers and our host, The Highland Council, for making this such a wonderful day.  I very much look forward to seeing it become a regular fixture on our calendar.”