The City of Edinburgh Council is about to use Government spaces for people money to impose sweeping changes on the communities of East Craigs and Craigmount in my Constituency, affecting 3,500 homes. The council has avoided any meaningful consultation, through the use of temporary traffic regulation orders, despite stating openly that the changes are likely to become permanent.

So keen were they to be heard that 1,000 residents recently attended a public meeting that I organised with the council’s transport convener. They are not car enthusiasts; they are normal people. Had the city council asked them, they would have made it clear that the plans will actually lengthen essential car journeys, putting huge additional pressure on arterial routes.

Given that a court in Berlin struck down similar proposals, stating that they were a misuse of the emergency, is the First Minister content that the council administration is acting lawfully and in the spirit of the Government’s funds for community social distancing?

I am happy to look into the specifics in more detail. I absolutely believe that local people should be properly consulted and listened to about local schemes. Alex Cole-Hamilton regularly comes to the chamber and talks to me about the need for greater localism and decentralisation and the need to do more to tackle climate change, so he should perhaps also reflect on that. He is right, however, to voice the interests of his constituents, and I am sure and I hope that the City of Edinburgh Council will listen and take them seriously.