Public parks: "Women need to feel safe" says Edinburgh councillor

The deputy leader of Edinburgh Council says he feels a duty to make sure the city's parks are a safe place to enjoy both day and night.

Cammy Day's comments come after Glasgow Council responded to women's safety campaigners' calls for better lighting by suggesting people shouldn't be using green spaces after dark.

Colin Edgar, head of communications at the authority said: "In general, we don't light our parks at night and we don't encourage people to use our parks at night except for temporary lighting for events.

“This is because our parks operate differently at nighttime than they do during the day.

"We're working to minimise energy use across our estate, but we're also working to minimise the disruption to nocturnal birds, and bats, and pollinators, which are present within our park land.

"So, we take the view that our parks are not places for people to be in the evening.

"The kind of extensive lighting that would be needed to make a park feel completely safe to someone in the hours of darkness is really not compatible with the nature that needs to live and thrive in our parks.

“That's why we market and design them as daytime spaces and design other well-lit active travel routes for people to use in the evening."

Reacting to Mr Edgar's words, Cllr Day told Forth News: “It’s an interesting comment from Glasgow Council.

"In Edinburgh, we would say our parks are there for the public to use.

"Inverleith and the Meadows are open all day, all night, every day of the year.

"The parks are there for the public of Edinburgh to enjoy sensibly and responsibly.

"Women need to feel safe in public spaces and they don’t, so we need to do everything we can to work with women’s groups to try and see how we can improve our parks and open spaces to be open at night times and be safe for women and everybody to walk around and enjoy it when we can."