Official Report 885KB pdf
Road Traffic (Permitted Parking Area and Special Parking Area) (Highland Council) Designation Amendment Order 2025 (SSI 2025/148)
The second item of business is consideration of a Scottish statutory instrument. It is laid under the negative procedure, which means that it will come into force unless the Parliament agrees a motion to annul it. No such motion has been lodged.
The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has made no comment on the instrument. Do members have any comments?
?I am interested in how the order will work in practice, and it might be worth us writing to Highland Council about that. I am aware that a number of tourist hotspot areas in Scotland are, in effect, on clearways on major A roads. Often, the coach parties and the large number of tourists who come to those areas result in dangerous parking and those A roads being blocked. In my region, the police have had to actively engage in enforcement action involving clearing cars away and so on. I am interested to know where the work of the police on that stops and where the work of the councils starts.
Another matter is that of hospital parking. There is an issue across Scotland where, in effect, private security firms carry out parking enforcement for the local authority, even though, in some areas, the council has taken on the responsibility for enforcement following the decriminalisation of parking. There is often a mismatch there.
Orders such as this one come to the committee from time to time. They look pretty straightforward, and they are, but there are issues with who is doing the safety and enforcement work. The issue of hospital car parking is a bit of an anomaly that still exists. It would be interesting to see what Highland Council would say on those two points.
Does anyone else have any comments?
My only comment is that there are 27 areas listed on the instrument where parking would be limited. I come from the Highlands, and I struggle to understand where they all are. I think that it would have been much easier if a map had been produced with the SSI so that we did not have to try to work out where each of the 27 areas is. I would ask that, in future, the clerks make sure that a small map is produced to ensure that we can understand where the areas are, especially when there are 27 of them.
The committee has agreed that it has no comments on whether the order should go into force. Do we agree to write to Highland Council regarding enforcement?
Members indicated agreement.