ETA project

There are a few certainties in British life. Rain at Wimbledon. A government minister “focusing on the real issues.” And, of course, the absolute bedlam that ensues when a single parking space is repurposed for literally anything else.Enter parklets, small urban interventions that take a boring old parking bay and turn it into a micro-oasis of seating, greenery, and - brace yourself - public space.

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Motorists in Glasgow now face fines of up to £100 for parking on pavements, as the city joins Edinburgh and other parts of Scotland in enforcing a ban designed to protect pedestrians. It’s a long-overdue step forward for accessibility, ensuring that people using wheelchairs, pushing buggies, or simply walking are not forced into the road to navigate around poorly parked cars.

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A producer from Top Gear emailed us about a decade ago with congratulations on our Guinness world record-winning caravan – a vehicle so dinky it can be towed behind a mobility scooter or bicycle. “We’re sorry we didn’t think of the idea ourselves” they graciously admitted.

News of the little caravan we dubbed the QTvan had travelled far and wide across the world’s media, but it’s interesting that Top Gear in particular took such an interest.

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Towns and cities can be safer and more pleasant places to live and work when motorised traffic is restricted, so how best to enforce LTNs and school streets? Planters and bollards are often used to create low traffic neighbourhoods by blocking rat runs, and cameras are relied on to safeguard school streets, but how about the idea of a...

Edinburgh will be the first city in Scotland to completely ban pavement parking. In a change to the law seen as long overdue by anybody who has had to negotiate a blocked footpath while pushing a buggy, steering a mobility scooter or travelling by wheelchair, drivers who mount the kerb will from next month be fined £100. Double parking and...