THE decision to introduce parking charges at a popular beauty spot and hillwalking destination has now been delayed.
The Pentlands Hils Regional Park, a poplar recreational destination which is surrounded by the car parks at Bonaly Country Park, Harlaw Reservoir, and Threipmuir Reservoir, has seen recent improvements to its parking and public toilet facilities.
The City of Edinburgh Council decided to undertake improvements to facilities in the Pentland Hills in early 2021 and introduce controlled parking zones (CPZs) to the three car parks surrounding the site.
So far, people using the car parks have only been asked to contribute a sum of their choice to the car park, but a traffic regulation order (TRO) is slated to be introduced sometime this year which will make payments compulsory.
It is hoped that these CPZs in the Pentlands will prevent displacement parking onto access roads to allow farm vehicles and emergency services sufficient space to operate.
The Pentland Hills have seen a significant increase in visitor traffic since 2020.
The item was due to be heard at yesterday’s Transport and Environment Committee and decided upon, but the interim corporate director of place, Gavin Brown, deemed that there was not sufficient data on the contributions yet to decide upon pricing.
He said: “The report that was put to you for consideration had not had the six months’ consideration for the fees that were been collected for contribution at the car parks within the Pentland Hills Regional Park.
“In order to present a proper report to progress the TRO in the future, I would like to have that data to analyse and then to make a competent progression.”
After a question from the SNP’s Neil Gardiner about how the data will affect the TROs, he added: “In order to progress the order competently, we need to have the charges as part of the order and the progression of that in the first place.
“In the report, the charges that were being suggested were only contributions, and moving forward, obviously, we’d like to make them charges…that aren’t considered contributions.”
These changes at the Pentland Hills site were discussed during a public consultation in November 2020 looking at issues like antisocial behaviour, parking, and path access.
66% of the 1,872 respondents for the public consultations supported charging for parking once the improvement works were complete.
Income from the parking charges will be used to maintain the improvements to parking, public toilets, and to maintain the 100km of pathways in the regional park.
The motion to introduce charges is set to be heard “further down the line”.
Once the council does approve the traffic regulation order, the proposals will be finalised and advertised for public comment.
