Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Official Report 651KB pdf

Petition

Parking (Legislation) (PE1616)

I welcome everyone back to the meeting. Item 3 is consideration of PE1616, which was lodged by John Shaw, on parking legislation. As members will be aware, the petition is about the prohibition of parking in front of dropped kerbs. We considered the petition, and the committee’s stage 1 report on the Transport (Scotland) Bill suggested that such provision should become part of the bill. At stage 2, the Government accepted that option and introduced provisions on the prohibition of parking in front of dropped kerbs.

The committee must now decide what to do with the petition and whether it wants to take any further action. Given that the suggestion has become law, it might be appropriate to write to the petitioner to say that we carefully considered the petition, which influenced our stage 1 report, which then encouraged the Government to include the relevant provisions in the Transport (Scotland) Bill.

Do members have any comments?

I agree with the convener’s comments. When we took evidence on the bill, I always tried to ask questions about parking at dropped kerbs, because I was very mindful of the petition. We have probably done the petitioner proud by getting the provisions into legislation so quickly.

I thank the petitioner for bringing the issue to our attention. Of course, other stakeholders and groups have worked with us on the matter, individually and collectively, throughout our consideration of the Transport (Scotland) Bill. I also thank the Government for taking on board the committee’s concerns and for including the provisions, which achieved cross-party support, in the bill.

I was the deputy convener of the Public Petitions Committee when the petition was lodged, and we were certainly keen for it to progress, so we passed it over to your good selves. This is a result for the petitioner and for both committees.

Is the committee therefore content to close the petition and for the clerks to write to the petitioner on behalf of the committee to thank him for his efforts in lodging the petition and to reflect the views that have been given today?

Members indicated agreement.