Representatives from access organisations visited Glasgow for a meeting last week, as they walked around a similar city development to that which we would see in Ardrossan.

The purpose was to learn how those with sight and hearing loss find navigating this infrastructure and how this could be applied to the Ardrossan Connections project.

Access organisations the RNIB, Scottish Centre for Personal Safety (SCPS), Sight Scotland and Sight Scotland Veterans, Deafblind Scotland, North Ayrshire Access panel and Glasgow Access Panel all attended the event.

The meeting took place on Victoria Road, in Glasgow’s Southside, which in recent years been transformed through large scale investment from both Sustrans and Glasgow City Council.

Eilidh Russell, project lead at Sustrans Scotland, said: “It was so valuable to hear everyone’s experience using different infrastructure and hear how they could be made better for those with sensory, visual and mobility impairments.

“This was a positive and constructive meeting enabling attendees to experience some of the design interventions being proposed for Ardrossan under the Ardrossan Connections project.”

Alan Bell, from the SCPS, attended the event, and still has concerns – though he did highlight some positive aspects of the meeting.

He said: “The walkabout was only useful from the perspective of ensuring that the inaccessible designs and many infrastructure errors shown would not be replicated in Ardrossan.

“Floating bus stops were too narrow and people could not turn their wheelchair or guide dog on them without falling off.

“Blind people did not know if cyclists had stopped to let them cross the zebra crossing to the floating bus stop.

“In fact, while we were waiting to cross, five cyclists went through the zebra crossing without stopping.

“On the plus side, we were shown a very good example of a shared path which had designated strips to separate cyclists from pedestrians and the discussions after the walkabout allowed us to put across our many concerns.

“Hopefully, they will all be addressed in the revised Ardrossan Connections plans.”