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Visitors to Holyrood Park in Edinburgh will be able to enjoy a safe, traffic-free environment during four days of road closures over the festive season.
In addition to the usual Sunday road closures on December 25th and January 1st, there will be further closures within the Park on Monday, December 26th and Monday, January 2nd, 2012.
The closures, which operate from 8am till 4pm, will be put in place at Queen’s Drive and Duddingston Low Road.
Martin Gray, Ranger and Visitors Services Manager for Historic Scotland at Holyrood Park, said : “These closures are in line with previous years. We experience a high volume of visitors on these days, and want to encourage people to use the Park in a safer, traffic-free environment.
“We would like to thank drivers for their understanding, particularly during the festive season when the Park is so busy and children are keen to take their new bikes and other Christmas presents outside for the first time.”
The High Road loop will remain open to cars, weather permitting, and drivers can leave their vehicles as usual the Park’s Holyrood Palace, Meadowbank and Duddingston car parks.
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CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
"Holyrood Park road traffic closures announced"
(23 posts)-
Posted 13 years ago #
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"We experience a high volume of visitors on these days, and want to encourage people to use the Park in a safer, traffic-free environment"
Quite! Just goes to show that they get high volumes in the winter. Just imagine what the volumes would be like with roads closed in the summer!
But a great big raspberry to the high road remaining open.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Anth, don't forget 'cycles' are traffic!! So walking through please pushing you're cycle...
Posted 13 years ago # -
DaveC - private land, no Traffic Regulation Order to close the road and therefore no specification of bikes as being stopped, Land Access laws kick in. 'Reasonable' use allowed - ride prudently, safely, and slowly around those walking, and you're perfectly legal.
Posted 13 years ago # -
"Under Part 1 of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 there is a right of responsible non-motorised access, for recreational and other purposes"
Posted 13 years ago # -
The High Road loop will remain open to cars, weather permitting, and drivers can leave their vehicles as usual the Park’s Holyrood Palace, Meadowbank and Duddingston car parks.
As Anth says - this is the bit where most cycle conflict occurs hence ©hilly Tuesdays. The only respite from a succession of non-essential traffic will in fact be a lot busier. So still a long way to go to encourage people out of their cars.
Come on HS. Strike a blow for healthy exercise and just close the park to cars and let people have some fresh air at Dunsapie! Radical I know but has to be done. People with cars can find other hills to drive up - can't they?Posted 13 years ago # -
anth / davec - would the LRA apply to the road, which is "shut", or just guarantee bike access to the other parts of the park (i.e. the grass?)
It would, evidently, be ironic if the park authority shut the park to traffic so kids could try out their new bikes and said bikes were included in the ban (there's no age limit, after all)! ;-)
Posted 13 years ago # -
I'm still amazed/frustrated at them leaving the high road open.
Posted 13 years ago # -
"would the LRA apply to the road, which is "shut""
Yip, because the road doesn't have a TRO for it to be closed - as it's private land they can just close the gates to keep out cars. Reasonable access under the LRA applies to the whole area, including the road.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Presumably then if someone drove around the barrier, they wouldn't be doing anything illegal (they might, perhaps, be committing a civil violation like trespassing?)
Posted 13 years ago # -
"Presumably then if someone drove around the barrier, they wouldn't be doing anything illegal"
The LRA only allows 'non-motorised' access, so they wouldn't be granted access by the act. The LRA is very carefully worded.
If they had said it was only pedestrian access then you're excluding wheelchair users and the like. The act could quite easily have excluded cyclists, but it didn't, the inference (without reading Hansard) is that they realised there was benefit in allowing cyclists to use the act as well.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Though interesting thought Dave - I wonder exactly what offence a driver who went round the barriers would be committing (I'll bet a fiscal could stretch breach of the peace to fit).
Posted 13 years ago # -
Well, you can generally be prosecuted for something whatever you're doing. "behaviour likely to lead to a breach of the peace" doesn't even require an actual breach, after all, or even that you'd be the one doing the breaching...
Posted 13 years ago # -
Interesting - Queen's Drive is not a public road. Access to the park is controlled by the Holyrood Park Regulations 1971, as amended (made under the Parks Regulation Act 1872, as amended). I can't track down a copy of these regulations (even on Westlaw), so I'm not sure whether there is a specific offence of driving through the park when the gates are closed. I should be able to find an answer after new year (if I remember)- when I have access to hard copy stuff.
Posted 13 years ago # -
That was more or less my dead end. It's not really a 'road' in terms of the various bits of road legislation is it? Under the Road Traffic Act 1988, s.34, it's an offence to drive over private land - though it does specifically say, if there is not a 'road'. It points to the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 for the definition of 'road' but that's proved unhelpful in the quick squizz I had.
I presume there is, in there, some definition with the possibility to carve out items, which may well have then been done in the Holyrood Park Regs.
Posted 13 years ago # -
"We would like to thank drivers for their understanding, particularly during the festive season when the Park is so busy and children are keen to take their new bikes and other Christmas presents outside for the first time.”"
I find this quite sad. "Kids, you have four days to ride your bikes in a safe environment. After that, tough."
Posted 13 years ago # -
Well as everyone knows,once the novelty's worn off, the bikes will just gather dust and rust in the garage/shed/garden/hallway/stair until summer time. I mean bikes are just toys and who on earth would let their kids cycle anywhere in the wind, rain, and with so many cars around it's just too dangerous.
No, they'll be strapped in the back of the car the rest of the year until the summer holidays. Anyone that does otherwise is just a bad parent.
Posted 13 years ago # -
EVERYTHING you need to know about Holyrood Park
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Thank you for posting this information onto the cycling website to make other users aware, it is always helpful to us to get this information distributed to as many people as possible.
Having read the forum with interest I thought that your users discussing this topic may find the following information of interest.
Holyrood Park is a Royal Park in the care of Scottish Ministers, managed by Historic Scotland and regulated by The Holyrood Park Regulations 1971 (as amended). The roads within the Park are classed as Crown Property and do not form part of the city road network. Access is permitted to these roads subject to the conditions laid down in the Park Regulations Act.
There are various sections of this legislation relevant to Holyrood Park roads that prohibit vehicles being driven on any section of the road that is indicated closed by notice or sign. Any vehicle caught driving on a closed road within the Park can be issued with a fixed penalty notice, by a Police officer, for each section of the Regulations that the driver has breached.
Keeping the High Road open to vehicle access during Sunday Road closures has been a practice since the roads began to be closed on Sundays in 1993. Following public consultation on the issue of proposed road closures within the Park Sunday closures met with the least resistance. It was decided however to keep the High Road section of the road open as it is a popular tourist route and facilitates access into the Park for less able users.
Public access in Holyrood Park is not covered by the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 SOAC because the Park has its own Act of Parliament. As such, the Park's Management Plan and Regulations prohibits off road cycling or mountain biking due to the increased effects of erosion, its impact on the sensitive features and the conflict it creates with other users due to the terrain. We do however actively encourage cycling on the roadway and cycle ways within Holyrood Park, and is indeed part of the reason behind Sunday road closures.
We are very conscious that Holyrood Park tries to serve a wide variety of interests and functions. Comments and feedback from Park users are always welcome and we use these to assist us during reviews of our Park Management Plans and procedures.
Kind regards,
Martin Gray | Ranger and Visitor Services Manager
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Posted 13 years ago # -
Off-road Off-path cycling not allowed, then? Someone needs to tell the parkies that.
Posted 13 years ago # -
That's really interesting. I had wondered if 'crown' property was exempt from the LRA, but hadn't seen anything - intriguing that a prior piece of legislation can over-rule. And while I'm still disappointed in the high road being open, this is encouraging:
"[i]We do however actively encourage cycling on the roadway and cycle ways within Holyrood Park, and is indeed part of the reasons behind Sunday road closures.[/]i"
I think most of us on here would just rather it went a bit further than just on Sundays and occasioanl extra days at Christmas.
Posted 13 years ago # -
From another place...
Following some of the chatter on this on the forum, I took the liberty of asking my colleagues in the Recreation and Access Group of Scottish Natural Heritage for their view on the legality of riding bikes in Holyrood Park
Below is the response I received.
**It should be noted that this is their interpretation of the relevant bits of legislation and and not necessarily a definitive statement of the law by SNH.The LRSA 2003 establishes a statutory right of access, conditional on responsible behaviour, over most land;
a small number of types of land are excluded eg - Sec 6(1)(d) - which is paraphrased below:
access rights are not exercisable where pre-existing legislation created an exclusion / restriction regarding public access.The principal Act (the Parks Regulation Act 1872) defined various parks & gardens, which include Holyrood, and created a power for managers of these places to create Regulations;
this Act was then amended by the Parks Regulations (Amendment) Act 1926 which enabled parks managers to make Regulations - "to be observed by persons using any park to which the principal Act applies, as they consider necessary for securing the proper management of the park, and the preservation of order and prevention of abuses therein, and if any person fails to comply with, or acts in contravention of, any regulations so made, he shall be guilty of an offence against the principal Act
The Holyrood Park Regulations, which were amended in 1971 are still in effect, and have had various amendments over the years. The latest fairly full amendment was the Holyrood Park Amendment Regulations 2004, which came into effect on 17 Dec 2004, which is after the LRSA was passed, so those 2004 Amendment probably count as being within the spirit of a section 30 type review.
From that, cycling is not among the 32 'Prohibited Acts' set out in section 3. [That is on the interpretation that a pedal cycle is not a 'vehicle' nor a 'mechanically propelled appliance', which I don't think it is since the term 'pedal-cycle' is used elsewhere in the Regs].
Section 4 is "Acts for which Written Permission is required", and this section does include 4(4) "riding a pedal cycle in line with others so as to form a line of more than two abreast", and 4(5) "driving or cycling at a speed greater than 30 miles per hour".
So from my reading, since Dec 2004, so long as you are not three or more abreast, and going less than 30 miles per hour, - and are cycling responsibly of course - then you are generally ok to pedal cycle in Holyrood Park
Trip up the Radical Road later anyone?
Posted 13 years ago # -
and going less than 30 miles per hour
Whoops...
Posted 13 years ago # -
Wasn't me. There's monkeybuttloads of Groundskeeper Willie lookalikes on 80's racers in Edinburgh. Must have been another one.
Posted 13 years ago #
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