Can we put a value on loss of Roseburn Path to trams? I tried

At intervals along this tunnel of green, the words ‘Save This Path’ were chalked across the tarmac. ‘Trees not trams here!’ declared a sign, crouched ominously under a bridge. Someone wandering up onto the path barked, ‘Save the Roseburn Path!'

We were in the final miles of our Kiltwalk last weekend and a question occurred to me as we marched along buoyed by chat and the music blaring from a fellow walkers backpack, ‘How other than through the love and care of its defenders, or the signatures in petitions, do we work out, or begin to understand, the worth of a green space like this?’

I’m not a regular on the Roseburn path. Only occasionally have I used it to cycle across to the other side of town, whipping along this tree-lined tunnel that seems an alternative Edinburgh, dislocated from the neighbourhoods and streets around.

But last weekend, while doing the Kiltwalk (in aid of a children’s cancer charity, Logan’s Fund) I couldn’t help thinking as I walked about what it means to different people: the cyclists struggling to get past the walkers, the families on a Sunday amble the couple of energetic local campaigners who had set up camp with posters and information.

One twirled around in a coat and t-shirt emblazoned with the craft-stitched words, 'Savetheroseburnpath.com', and said, "I just wear the message everywhere because so many people are unaware of the dangers, the threats to this wonderful place that everyone who knows it loves."

They had come out to raise awareness around the public consultation currently being run by the City of Edinburgh Council over a new phase of tram build, in which the Roseburn Path is the preferred route for a line that will link Haymarket with Granton.

One of the main reasons that Roseburn is the preferred route is cost – its simply much cheaper. The entire new line, it has been estimated, will cost between £2 billion and £2.9 billion, and within that Orchard Brae has been estimated to come in at around £756 million, and Roseburn Path at £422 million.

A variant of the Roseburn route that goes via Telford Road was estimated at £478 million, but has been discounted “due to construction costs, patronage figures and the likelihood of causing network disruption”. If cost alone were the question, the Roseburn Path would be the choice.

But the debate over which route a new tram line should take, or even if there should be one, is, of course, complex, taking in questions of economics, population growth, carbon emissions, impact on biodiversity, loss of amenities, gain of a different amenity, financial health of Edinburgh City Council, active travel and public health.

It's a consultation that requires us to weigh up and put a value on things not easily monetised. When I wrote about the Roseburn Path during The Herald's The Future of Edinburgh series in June, it struck me that this is a debate that balances the value of nature and green space against potential carbon emissions from tram use – a tension I am seeing increasingly around developments from windfarms to battery parks.

But how to weigh, monetise, or assess the entire value of nature and green space? Though, in this net zero age, we are now somewhat adept at calculating the impact any change might have on carbon emissions, we are still fumbling about a bit in terms of assessing nature in terms of its own value in ecosystem and planetary terms and what it gives us.

It's not hard to get a sense of what a tram route down the Roseburn path will mean in terms of cutting carbon emissions. Though we don’t have a hard answer, one thing we can be sure is that it will mean fairly much the same as a tram route via Orchard Brae, and that whichever one of these routes is chosen, it is likely to cut carbon emissions if it runs for long enough and carries enough passengers.

Winds of Change on the Roseburn Path tram route(Image: Derek McArthur)

We know that operational emissions are low for electric trams – lower than petrol cars, electric cars, buses, electric buses - and the more we decarbonise our grid, the lower they will go.

The more thorny question is what the new tram route will mean for nature and human wellbeing. One way of looking at the value of the Roseburn Path could be to ask if it is worth that whopping difference of cost between the two different routes of between £200 and 300 million.

Campaigners are calling Roseburn Path a ‘linear green park” and it might be useful to calculate the wellbeing or health value that brings to those who live around it and use it.

That green experience, that value, undoubtedly, will be diminished if it is chosen for the tram build. It’s also hard to see how it can be made to continue to function so well as an active travel route.

READ MORE:

• Could Roseburn Path backlash derail new Edinburgh tram plan?
• Edinburgh Trams to temporary close section of tram line
• Is Edinburgh city centre safe to cycle? I (nervously) tried it | The Herald

As the Edinburgh cycling charity Spokes has pointed out the current plan would see the path between 3m and 4.2m wide in most parts, except 2.1m width for 24m distance at Telford Bridge, and a two metre width immediately south of the Roseburn Terrace bridge.

We know a lot of people use the path for what might be termed exercise. A Sustrans route intercept survey estimated that the annual usage of the Roseburn path is 590,000 trips – estimating 970 cycling trips and 640 walking and wheeling trips a day. Clearly it has an immense value as an outdoor gym.

But the wellbeing value of Roseburn path is not only as a travel route and means of exercise - it also revolves around some of the more intangible values around green space. Quantifying this is an expanding area of research, and there are increasing numbers of studies into how green space affects health outcomes and can even reduce health inequality.

One study titled Revaluing Parks and Green Spaces, for instanced, tried to calculate the wellbeing value of parks in England and Wales, estimating a total of £34.2 billion, and a saving to the NHS of £111 million.

It’s hard to extrapolate from that and find some value for an individual amenity like the Roseburn Path, but one calculation made as part of the study may be useful.

It estimated that “an individual would need to be compensated by £974 a year to replace the life satisfaction they would have gained from using their local park or green space (more than once per month)”.

Imagine we calculated out a figure of that value for all the users of the path - except I don't have that figure, I only have the number of journeys. But I do know that for the sum total of that to come close to the £200 million cost difference between the two routes, 200,000 people would have to be using it more than once a month, and if they were, that would result in far more than the 590,000 journeys per year.

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Nevertheless such a calculation is a reminder. The Roseburn Path is worth something that should be weighed up against those hundreds of million costs and there are probably other ways one could attempt to calculate its value. It's also why people are fighting for it.

The question is, is it worth enough? How does that weigh up when we hold in our thoughts also other issues like the expansion of population in Edinburgh, the challenges of finance and the ever present need for more sustainable mass transport in the city?

Over the next couple of weeks I'll be taking a deeper dive into some of these questions.