Turning 301 consultation responses into an adopted council strategy
The challenge
Scottish Borders Council needed to consult on their Draft Active Travel Strategy, gathering meaningful feedback from both individuals and organisations across the region. The strategy required input on where aspects could be improved and how the council should prioritise active travel routes. With active travel affecting everyone from daily commuters to recreational cyclists and pedestrians, they needed a way to reach a broad audience and collect structured feedback that could be incorporated into the final strategy.
The approach
The council published their Draft Active Travel Strategy consultation on Citizen Space, asking residents and organisations to provide feedback on the draft and identify where improvements could be made. The consultation was designed to gather both qualitative feedback on the overall strategy and specific suggestions for route development and prioritisation.
Building on earlier work, the council had already used Citizen Space to run a Shared Access Network consultation in 2023, which received 383 responses about where new shared access routes should be developed and which should be prioritised. This earlier feedback had been incorporated into the Draft Active Travel Strategy, demonstrating an iterative approach to policy development.
The results
The consultation received 301 responses, with 268 from individuals and 33 from organisations. The council analysed all feedback and incorporated it into an updated version of the strategy, with changes made throughout the document to ensure the valuable insights gathered during consultation were reflected in the final version.
The Scottish Borders Council Active Travel Strategy was formally adopted on 29 October 2025, completing the journey from initial route consultation through draft strategy development to final adoption, all supported by Citizen Space.
Delib is a govtech leader specialising in consultation and engagement, trusted by over 600 government organisations worldwide, including major planning projects. Since 2004, we've been building secure, accessible digital platforms to make participation simpler, fairer, and more inclusive. Our flagship product, Citizen Space, was built in collaboration with the UK government and has supported more than 11 million responses across over 110,000 democratic activities.