 Welcome to the 27th meeting of 2015. Everyone present is asked to switch off mobile phones and other electronic devices as they interfere with the broadcasting system. Some committee members will consult tablets during the course of the meeting as we provide papers in digital format. No apologies have been received today and we move on to our first item of business, which is to take evidence on the footway parking and double parking Scotland bill. We have two panels giving evidence. The first is from the perspective of pavement and road users and the second from the perspective of the local authorities and Police Scotland, who will be responsible for implementing and enforcing the bill. For the first panel, I introduce Jane Horsebrough from Guide Dog Scotland, Stuart Hay from Living Street Scotland, Chris Campbell from the Road Hology Association, Morvan Brookes from the Scottish Disability Equality Forum, John Binning from Strathclyde Partnership for Transport and David Levy from Sustrans Scotland. George, I believe that you have something at this point. I am a patron of the Scottish Disability Equality Forum, so you were aware of that before I say anything. Does anyone want to make any brief opening statements? I would like to welcome the fact that the committee has chosen to take evidence on this issue. It is a big issue for all the charities that are represented here in terms of our mail bag. There is a fundamental principle about how we use our streets and what our payments are for in terms of providing safe passage for pedestrians and, particularly, for vulnerable pedestrians. The principles of what we are talking about here are sound. It is about how we work on a practical basis and how we manage our streets. The final point is that the existing law, from our perspective, is not working. A lot of people will contact us out of sheer frustration because they cannot get councils or the police to do anything about it. It is vulnerable people. In some cases, they cannot get their house, cannot go down to the shops, cannot do the things that they want to do. We need to look at the issue, so I think that this is a really welcome step that the Scottish Parliament has taken. Sustran Scotland supports the general principles of the bill. Inconsiderate parking is an issue for pedestrians and cyclists alike. Stewart has touched on how it affects pedestrians, and I will focus on how it affects cyclists, in particular parking in front of drop kerbs. Double parking is a big issue for those who choose to make journeys by bike. Not only does it create an inconvenience, but it also creates a hazard for those who choose to make journeys by bike. I think that the bill will support Scottish Government policy on active travel. There is a generally positive policy landscape on active travel, such as the cycling action plan for Scotland and the national walking strategy. Those policies seek to make it safer and more attractive for people to make everyday journeys by foot and bike. I think that the bill in general supports that policy landscape. In the surveys that we have done, the bill has been the most obstacle on payments that people are coming up against. We can provide people with guide-offs and other forms of mobility. We also have a charity called Blind Children UK that works with children and young folk to help mobility and independence. However, it is getting out in our streets and on to transport. If you cannot access your streets well, you cannot join up and take part in your communities and go about your daily business. That is one of the biggest issues that we are dealing with just now. It seems to be growing the problem, particularly of parking on pavements and over drop kerbs. I welcome the fact that we are actually looking at it and hopefully we can take it forward quite positively. SPT would support the principles of the bill and we would acknowledge the difficulties that inconsiderate parking can cause. I would echo a number of the comments that we have made so far. We have a concern, however, that an unintended consequence of the bill could be that it would be more difficult for buses to navigate their way through narrow roads. Thank you. Ms Breaks, please. Scottish Disability Quality Forum and our members greatly welcome this bill. There is a widespread problem for disabled people in using pavements and drivers blocking dropped kerbs. It has a fundamental impact on disabled people's health and, especially, their healthy wellbeing and safety. I reiterate that we welcome this along with our members. Thank you, Mr Campbell. Do you want to say anything at this point? I am very happy to sit still and quiet, please. There has been an argument from some that existing legislation could be used to deal with these difficulties. I have to say from my own perspective in dealing with things over many years as a councillor and now as an MSP, trying to use existing legislation to deal with some of the footway parking issues has been extremely difficult indeed. Can you maybe give us an indication of what you think of existing legislation and do you think that that is adequate to deal with some of the problems that the draft bill is hoping to address? I think that it is interesting in Scotland that it is illegal to drive on pavements, but you can park on a pavement and that is virtually unenforceable. There are very few examples. The police do have powers, but it is very difficult for them to use those powers, so we welcome the fact that the police have looked at the bill and seen that it is a useful set of tools that they can use. There are powers that local authorities could use, but none of them have chosen to do so. That is proof in itself. If the powers are available, local authorities do know what they are. There was a memo that went from the Scottish Government to all the local authorities in the past three or four years that said that those are the powers that they could use to tackle the issue, but they are obviously not practical. This is a much simpler and more consistent approach. You have talked about the existing legislation, which does not allow you to drive on pavements. One of the arguments that I have had previously is that, in order to park on the pavement, you have to drive on the pavement to get the car on. I do not know whether you have tried that argument before in terms of some of the issues that you have tried to resolve. Where did you get with that? That argument has been made, but it just does not work because the police are not in a position to enforce. It comes down to what constitutes an obstruction and proving that is very difficult. The police have a lot of pressures on them, and they need simple, effective legislation that allows them to identify a problem. That should really sit with other truck parking offences and be decriminalised as a fixed penalty notice type of offence. That is a question that I have. It relates to the fact that the existing legislation allows certain vehicles to load and unload on pavements when necessary may not be included in the bill. We respectfully request that the facilities under section 19 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 are still available. There seems to be no mention of that in section 1 of the proposed bill. That is something that the committee will choose to ask the mover of the bill. Sandra White, when she appears in front of us next week, can be also of the opportunity to speak to Government ministers next week, and may raise that issue. Mr Livy, please. Just to touch on, drop kerbs and double parking. Drop kerbs provide safe access point for people who are travelling by bike between cycle tracks and carriageways. At present, we understand that local authorities cannot take action on drop kerbs from being parked on, unlike in some local authorities in England. Under the Traffic Management Act 2004 in the Wales and Special Enforcement Zones, local authorities cannot take action on drop kerbs. That is not the case in Scotland at present. My understanding is that a traffic regulation order, a TRO, has to be put in place for every drop kerb. The legislation that the bill would prohibit parking at drop kerbs and tidy that up, rather than a local authority having to put in a TRO for every drop kerb. On double parking, double parking can force people who are travelling by bike further into the carriageway and sometimes into the other side of the road. That creates not just an inconvenience but hazard as well. I understand that it is not present, and it is based on the evidence given by Police Scotland that the powers to deal with those offences have to constitute an obstruction, but what constitutes an obstruction is not clear. The bill makes it quite clear that double parking is a vehicle parked more than 50 centimetres from the edge of a carriageway, so that makes it quite specific and would make it easier to enforce. At present, the powers to deal with an obstruction do not extend to local authorities. That bill would extend it to local authorities. Does anyone else want to come to Ms Horsbrough? I think that if the legislation was working, we would not have the issue that is hitting all our post boxes just now. For somebody to report, I do not think that it is going to be a priority for people. They are going to come up against an obstacle, report it to the police, then have to wait for the police to come, and then they have to make an opinion whether it is or not an obstruction. It is quite a difficult thing to do, and it is not something that most people probably would be willing to do. However, I want to focus on the fact that there is no definition of what an obstruction actually is. It is left very vague, and it is left up to the opinion of the reporting and the responding officer. The definition gives clarity for enforcement. I think that it also gives clarity to society that you cannot do something. It is an obstruction and it is almost part of the education that would be required. Sometimes people do not realise the impact of parking over a drop kerb or parking on a pavement. It gives a clear statement as well as is helpful for the actual enforcement into a car. Police Scotland will welcome the fact that that is what they have said. It strengthens the weaknesses that are actually in the current piecemeal legislation. The draft bill, as it stands, would emit A and B roads and private roads from your views on that. Do you think that A and B roads and private roads should be included in the legislation? That would be useful. It is probably a small number of more likely rural settlements that have those roads running through them, where that will be an issue. As I understand it, the bill as drafted focuses pretty much on urban areas. That is defined by the presence of street lighting. It is a slight anomaly that would be useful to tidy up. Anyone else who has commented on that? I understand fully the standard of the bill and what it is trying to achieve in terms of objectives. However, as far as the road freight logistics sector concerns, our job is to deliver the goods whether they are like it or not. Yes, we must comply with the regulations and any further regulations that make life more difficult and more expensive for us to carry out our work that we are not going to be in favour of. If we can prove that our sector is causing all of those problems with drop parking, double parking on kerfs in towns and villages through all the A and B routes, then fair enough. Apart from that, I would suggest that it be maintained to the urban areas in towns and cities. I do not think that anybody is accusing the road haulage industry of causing all of the problems in that regard, Mr Campbell. I think that that goes much, much beyond the road haulage industry. It is just on the drop kerb issue. There are no living streets that have made a comment regarding the exemption for residential drop kerbs compared with designated drop kerbs. Should we have designated drop kerbs? In streetscaping, a lot of local authorities have put in town centres drop kerbs for wheelchair users and mobility scooter users to be able to go across the road and get on the other side of the road with safety. Clearly, there may be issues if you try to enforce a prohibition on drop kerbs outside residential properties, particularly where residents have put in off-street parking outside their house and they have paid for the drop kerb to be put in there to allow them to get access to the parking in front of their house. So, how do we define what is a drop kerb and what drop kerbs should be exempt from potential legislation in this matter? I think that there is more work needed on this point in the bill. From a living streets perspective and the perspective of colleagues and other charities, it is really about defining drop kerbs that have been put in place by councils to help people to cross the road, and they are designed so that councils should know where they are at present. Someone will already be aligned, but that would protect all of them automatically. It is quite obvious that those common pairs are on either side of the road, which is different from a residential cross-over, I think that you would call it, where you can cross the pavement to enter a driveway. So, there are two issues there, and our focus is obviously on the ones that are there for people with mobility issues. Anyone else want to come in on that one, Mr Campbell? I may again absolutely agree there. We do notice in section 2 that the drop kerb facility would apply no longer than necessary and for no more than 20 minutes. Now, if this is contained in the bill, that would give our sector some problems, because it can take longer than 20 minutes to, for example, house removal, or indeed now with internet shopping, not only does the lorry driver come along and deliver your television or your fridge, he's got to go into your house and connect it up, and that probably would be more than 20 minutes, so we would be concerned on the 20 minute limit. I have a concern for my members who are disabled people across Scotland. If the enforcement, especially in drop kerbs, doesn't take place or doesn't get passed, it affects disabled people's lives on a daily basis. They have to think about, when they first leave their home in the morning, how they're going to reach their destination, because if they know that there's an area that is well known for people either they will park in or park in over a drop kerb, then it's obstructing their onward journey, and likewise, when they actually get to their destination and backwards, they have to think again. It affects their health, their stress levels will rise, because they have to take a diversion of their onward journey. It has a fundamental impact in every way in a disabled person's life if they have mobility problems. Could you give us an indication of if those situations affect wheelchair users only, or is it folks with other disabilities who are not necessarily wheelchair users? No, not necessarily wheelchair users. It could be mobility scooters, it could be anybody with a walking aid who obviously struggle walking long distances, but it could even be a short distance that's still being obstructed for them, because of the selfish act of parking over a drop kerb or double parking when they're obstructing their way. I just like to echo what you said, this is about accessibility and that is our focus. Answering people that use drop kerbs or where the road has been raised up to meet the pavement to create that level area to make a technical crossing point. It's not just used by people in wheelchairs or mobility scooters, they tend to be in desired walking lines, so if you're actually walking along the pavement, you're liable just to come across one, so folk that can't see it are also going to be using them. In theory, you would think that they should be clear on each side. If you can't actually see and you use one of these, you're actually walking straight across the road and you don't know if there's a vehicle, a small vehicle, let alone something larger, that's parked on the other side. If that's the case, then you're actually walking up the road, feeling along the vehicles, trying to find a safe place back onto the pavement. Really, if somebody feels that they are required as a last resort to park over a drop kerb or one of these technical crossing points, we would hope that it would be for the minimum amount of time possible. If that means that person stopping after they're done offloading and taking that vehicle somewhere else to go back, so be it, it's actually about accessibility. I personally know somebody who was stuck for three quarters, if an ever, blocked in by a white van, sorry about the colour, a white van stuck in a pavement and somebody over a drop kerb, where they had an alternative route to go home. It was four times as long but it was an alternative route, but they couldn't do that because it was blocked either end. Mr Binning, are you wanting to come in there? Yes, I think it should also be noted that drop kerbs are useful for people with children in buggies and push chairs. There are occasions as well on psychopaths where having drop kerbs or even level areas on to roadways allow cyclists to safely cross the roadway as well, so I think it's worth just adding those as well. Thank you for the clarification because I'm just trying to make the distinction between, and I think that Ms Hossburgh described it as a technical crossing point compared to a lower kerb where a no resident has actually lowered that kerb. One of the issues that's come up in some of the evidence is that somebody mentioned where the designated or technical crossing point has not been lined and has not been identified by the local authority. I know that in the area where I live, the local authority spent lots of money streetscaping, pulling drop kerbs, but there is no signage to say to car users that this is a technical crossing point. The argument is that the cost to local authorities to put the signage up to mark the roads may be prohibitive, particularly in times of austerity. The local authorities are being asked to declutter the streetscape in terms of road signage. How do we get around the issue of designating technical crossing points and getting local authorities to clearly identify that so that motor vehicle users and lorry users are aware that that is a designated crossing point for users of payments? This is an important part of the bill in terms of coming to some common definitions of these types of pieces of infrastructure, and there's a lot of education that goes before the four year end, so that the motorists understand what those crossing points are and who benefits from them. If a lot of people understand that, they'll be less likely to park across them. The bill is a bridge to start educating people. The enforcement comes way down the line. The bill, as drafted, means that automatically all those points are protected and that you would need to sign in line each one individually, which I think is the problem at the moment. That's why the bill looks at a universal approach across Scotland, so it's consistent, so you can do that education. If you leave it down to individual local authorities, it becomes a bit of a hodgepodge, it becomes much more challenging. You've got to issue all those individual traffic regulation orders, whereas with the footway parking, you're only looking at a reasonably small number of exempt streets, so the local authorities actually have to do less work on that, but they will have to take on some extra duties initially to identify the streets where parking might be permissible, where you're not going to damage the pavement, where they're with the pavement is of a sensible nature that people can get by, or there actually is no viable alternative. It might be a back lane or something like that, where it's just not really sensible to ban parking on a pavement, so there will be a bit of work for the local authorities to do initially, but once that's done, the law's clear and everybody knows where they stand. Okay, anyone else on that one? Mr Levy? Just to pick up on what Mr Hay was saying there, we are, as an organisation generally, supportive of the exemptions, but in order to get that consistency across Scotland, across different local authorities, to tie in with emergency services and other interested parties, I think it would be useful to have national guidance to be provided so that the overall objectives of the bill aren't undermined. Just to respond to Mr Hay's answer, I welcome the initiative to try and get, and I think he said, consistent across Scotland. At the present moment, we know enforcement isn't consistent across Scotland. We have some local authorities where there is no traffic wardens, so there is no monitoring of street parking. Other areas will have complaints that the police don't enforce the legislation that's currently in place. How confident are the panel that, if the legislation wants to go through, we would get a consistent approach throughout Scotland, particularly in areas where there is no traffic enforcement officers and local authorities? We have 32 local authorities, so we have 30 to have different policies regarding that. Who would enforce those restrictions if they were introduced? What the bill aims to do is to provide a framework for enforcement to happen, so it's quite enabling that way, and it provides a framework whether it could be either police or the local authority. I think that the current legislation is now some of it lies just with the police, so that actually takes the framework forward. Local authorities make up the decisions on how they want to manage the streets, and we hope that they will work with their communities through their community planning forums to take that forward to how they want the streets to manage to what the hotspots are, but that is a framework that allows that discussion to happen. It will be interesting to hear how some of the local authorities will be responding to some of those questions that you have there. Mr Campbell, please. What we are trying to say is that when we are operating free logistics, we are not packing up as such, and that sounds peculiar. If we don't park, we stop to carry out an action of loading and unloading, and then we move on. It's quite simple, because if we are not turning the wheels, we are not earning money, so we don't want to hang about in cities and restricted areas. When it comes to enforcement of parking, that's a different matter, because if our drivers are parking up their vehicles by mean, they park up and then they go away from the lorry and maybe spend two or three hours for lunch, which they hope they are not doing, or they park up overnight, that's a different set of conditions, because under the traffic commissioner regulations, the lorry driver and the vehicle can be moved from a parking situation. For example, overnight it may be parked outside somebody's house. The traffic commissioner has powers to move that vehicle and bring the employer to account, so there is fairly strict enforcement available for incorrect parking, long-term overnight parking, for example, with commercial vehicles bigger than the transit van size. Some job if you get a two or three hour lunch, I have to say, Mr Gamble. I think some of your members will be wondering what you're talking about there. We have to meet the European drivers rules. Anyone else on that one? Mr Binning. For those councils that have introduced decriminalised parking, this will present something of an issue in terms of stretched resources. I think that's been acknowledged in a number of the written responses to the committee, but it's just a point that I would reiterate. SPT is a partnership of 12 local authority councils in the west of Scotland, and a number of them have expressed concern about the resource issues. Inevitably, they will have priorities in terms of how an act would be enacted, and with those stretched resources, that's understandable. How many of those 12 operate decriminalised parking at the moment? I think that the majority at the moment, I don't know the precise number, but the majority do. Can I say at the start that I am very sympathetic to this bill, but I'm just from the point of view from a road user's perspective. John Binning earlier referred to the implications possibly for bus drivers, and Jane Stewart talked about being about education. I agree that education is a factor, but the reality is that, in quite a lot of new-build and council estates, there's just simply no option but for residents to park on the pavement. I think about Macon's constituency, there's parking on both sides, if people weren't parked on the pavement, buses simply wouldn't get down their roads, they're almost single file as it is. I wonder what the panel think could be alternative solutions to be introduced to accommodate any displaced cars that would result from a parking van? Where should residents park their cars instead of parking on the pavements? He's going to take that on a difficult one to answer. Mr Binning, first of all, please. I think that it is a very good point. We have expressed our concern about the unintended consequences of the bill. Of course we support the principles of the bill and we understand that the problems that inconsiderate parking can cause, but I know that there's been reference before to traffic reduction orders and that there are difficulties with those, but we would hope that within the bill there could be some discretion given to local authorities, particularly in those kind of council estates, pre-war and post-war estates, etc. that were never really intended to accommodate the level of parking that there currently is. Local authorities would continue to have some discretion in those areas, because we recognise that there isn't sufficient overspill parking there and there aren't enough driveways to accommodate all the vehicles. Mr Hayes. There are certain areas, and I think that hopefully that would mean—a lot of those estates that the pavements can be quite wide and the kerb can be quite low so that the result damage from parking is not going to be as big an issue. That's one stage, but ultimately I think that the local authorities in some areas will have to choose between the rights of people to park outside their house or the rights of a disabled person to go about their daily lives. You can't get away from that with that. There are wider questions about how we actually start looking at transport policy. We're here because, basically, as a country for the last 40 years, we've failed to manage traffic in urban areas. We need to start looking at that, but I don't think that we can say that disabled people, visually impaired people, should pay the price, basically, for that failure, because that's ultimately what we're saying. It probably will deal with itself in some areas that will be driven by people in those areas who have particular access. They will force the gender enforcement. If there's nobody being obstructed, then the pressure on the local authority to do anything in those areas will be much less, but where there is a need, there should be the ability of local authorities to deal with that need in terms of fair access to pavements. Anyone else? Mr Binning, you want to come back in there? Sorry, if I could just make another point. SPT operates my bus services, which are intended to support more vulnerable transport users who find using mainstream buses challenging, and those buses are subject. Mr Binning, I want to stick to this bill. While your other policies may be really exciting and interesting, I want to stick to this bill. Many of our members have made comments at the fact that, obviously, enforcement is currently difficult and probably moving forward if the bill gets passed, probably will still be difficult. I just wanted to highlight the fact that there are 46 access panels throughout Scotland and, again, reiterating what the other panel members have said. The local authorities could work closer with the local communities. The access panels are an ideal route to do that. They look at accessibility issues, whether it be buildings or pavement parking. I am sure that each access panel would welcome that relationship with their local authorities to move that forward. I still think that it is a great area. I still do not think that we have an answer to where residents who are displaced would park, but that is something that we would have to consider further. I just wanted to pick up Mr Campbell's point about removals. I understood that local authorities can apply for a permit when a removal is taking place. Therefore, there will be no need for special exemption under four hours. Is that correct? It was making the point that, in the bill, that does not say that. Technically, we could end up in miles of red tape every time we do a delivery when we have to get a permit or someone to give us permission. That would seem to be the case for parking our lorries when we have to on pavements. There is an application in section 6 that we can ask for special permission, but our vehicles are not like buses running in regular services. Our vehicles are in different places every day. It is impossible to predict what the next time we do a delivery. I will give you an example of a vehicle on the top left hand in picture 1. Under the new bill, the driver has committed an offence. He has had to park on the pavement because there was a car, a black car on the corner in the loading bay. Eventually, the driver gets his £100 fine and all that feeds back to the employer in terms of their operator licensing. The lorry goes into the loading bay and he is committed to another offence because this is an old property and the vehicle cannot go back any further. The front of the lorry is now on the kerb, so now he has a second offence, £100 fine, and it goes back to the traffic commissioner. We could give a permit for this, but I do not know when that lorry is going to come back. It might be next week, it might be a different supplier, it might be a different hauler's contractor. Having to have a permit, it is just going to rapidly increase, with all due respect, red tape, as far as we are concerned, and for local authorities. The point that I was making was on removals, where you said that it is going to be four or five hours. When removals take place, it is obviously in advance that people know that. Normal local authorities apply for a permit for removals for longer than four or five hours. Surely common sense would prevail on that if they could not park in your example of war buttons there. Therefore, he would not get a fine because he could say, look, I could not park, I had to deliver. Mr Campbell, I am sorry for interrupting. I am sorry, but section 1 of the proposed bill does not allow any of our vehicles to park on the kerb full stop unless there is special written permit. If that is the case, there will be thousands of permits. When it comes to the removal vehicle, the regulation still says, in the bill, that the regulation will come out as there is a 20-minute wait if you are double-parked or beside a sunken kerb. There is no right, for example, for that vehicle. It does happen with removal vehicles. They have to get onto the kerb until other vehicles go past. That would not be permitted either. That would be totaled out with a 20-minute allowance or a permit. The permit would allow us to park for longer, but we still would not be able to do that vehicle legally on to the kerb. I am not going to say that the lorry should not be on the kerb, but I am sorry. With the design of towns, special older towns and housing estates, we have to do that if we want to get the job done. Common sense that comes in here or not? I would say that there is not much common sense from my point of view, because all we are going to do is say that we have a legislation that does not give common sense, and therefore we are technically liable. There is no confidence there that we are not going to get the bill for parking our bread van on the pavement. I am going to take Mr Hayden first, and I will come back to you, Cameron. Mr Hayden, please. That is just a point of clarification. There is no permits in this piece of legislation on what the second part of the bill provides exemptions for specific streets where there is likely to be problems. You can see that on a narrow shopping or high street where there will be deliveries. The council could say that alongside other types of parking, there is some scope to park on the pavement. There is scope in the bill, but it is not a permit system. It is taking a street on that particular street, and that is how the regulations will apply. What would be your solution to that aspect? It is dangerous to ask that, but I want to know the answer. It is fairly straightforward. At the moment, there is a UK Road Traffic Act, which has been on the go since I can't remember when, that allows us to park on kerfs if absolutely necessary and we won't have committed an offence. All we are asking is that we have that bill built into section 1 of the bill when it comes to parking on footpaths, meaning that we don't park on footpaths, we stop on them to load and then load and then move on. The answer is quite simple. The Road Traffic Act exemptions for loading on kerfs should continue into the Scottish bill. Before we move off, Mr Hayden, do you have anything more to add? I was interested in a comment that Mr Hayden made earlier. I was just going to reflect on as I go about my business and visit my family and live in the world. It seems to me that, in a lot of housing estates, people do park on the pavement. That goes against the principles of the bill, and I appreciate that it causes you problems for anybody who has mobility problems or is pushing a push chair or walking along with young children and I accept that. However, the reality is that, for those who live in those estates, there is a sort of mutual consent around neighbours being okay about people parking on the pavement because most houses have more than one car, many houses don't have parking for more than one car. It seems to me that if we are going to educate and encourage people who are not parking on the pavement, we have to provide some other form of parking. That takes you right back to the planning system and the consents that are given for those housing developments. Do you think that, alongside the bill, there would need to be changes to the planning system, or could we get round it with the local arrangements that Mr Hayden referred to when he said that councils could look at neighbours who can work out a local arrangement? I'm glad that you mentioned planning, because it was going through my mind earlier on that there is a bigger issue for the medium to long term to actually that vehicles are accommodated where necessary in residential areas, so hopefully that would go forward. I don't know if it would sit with this, but maybe you could take some advice about what the Government's viewpoint is regarding planning. Certainly, in its policy on designing streets, it wants pedestrians and cyclists to be prioritised over vehicles, but vehicles need to be accommodated as well as a reasonable amount. I agree that there is a longer term issue, otherwise it is just building in problems for the future. However, the things that have been said just now, the bill has not been created by the society that we are in, so there is nothing new. It will focus local authorities and more policy to tackle some of the areas that have been neglected in the past. On a very practical level, it allows local authorities to manage the streets now. If you are among my buggy, if you are somebody who cannot actually see, if you know that one side of the street is going to be parked on, you actually then know that the other side is going to be clear. It is about managing that street. We are not saying that it is easy. It is not easy, but it is worth tackling, but unless we jump on this, we are not going to set any framework for tackling it. Right now, in many of these states—we have all been in these states—there is a whole slalom effect. It is not feasible for a person with a buggy slalom from pavement to pavement, and somebody who cannot see coming off onto the road and having to walk straight down, feeling the way along to try to find a safe way back, that has to be a priority. However, it is not easy, but it is working with the communities to do that. However, there are some practical things in there that can be looked at. Ms Brooks, please. Just following on from what Jane was saying, accessibility should be considered at all levels of planning. That is the role that we take on as an organisation, a national organisation and also the access panels. Work has to be considered within the local community and, obviously, communities needs, especially in housing the states that you are talking about. Parking facilities are not considered, and they should be considered. However, it is about equality for all. It is not just about disabled people. It is not just about, obviously, a woman with a buggy. It is about equality for all. Accessibility needs to be considered at the very early planning stages. Men with buggies as well, of course. It is just to pick up on a point that Ms Horsbrough made. It is already policy that footway parking should be minimised. That is already in designing streets, which is the policy statement for Scotland, which is published by the Scottish Government. However, going forward, footway parking should be designed out. That should be the policy, but we are where we are in terms of footway parking happening. It does happen. That bill would give it legislative teeth. It would put in place a ban. It would give us the ability to do something about it where it does happen at present. It is worth bearing in mind that 30 per cent of households in Scotland do not have access to a car, so they rely on walking public transport cycling. That bill would be a huge benefit to them. I accept the point that Mr Liffie made, but I know that in some areas there is one and a half parking spaces per property. There is overspill parking, and that is going to have to go somewhere else. That is going to have an knock-on effect into surrounding streets. We just need to be mindful of that, but I completely accept the principle of access to mobility that that is a given. We live in the real world, and we have to accept that there are consequences of that legislation. Before I take George, I ask if anyone has made a submission to the current planning review panel that the Government has put in place on any of those issues. Mr Liffie, Sustrans will make a submission to that. Any of the other organisations on the streets plans to do so as well. You are being proactive in those regards as well. One of the issues that you brought up more of was the fact that access panels. One of the problems with the drop curbs is that it is pretty much a hodgepodge in local authorities. Some are very good, some are not great. One might have one at one end of the street, and the same one in the roads at the other end of the street. Is that not an argument for talk about putting submissions to the planning regulations that access panels are looking at as a statutory organisation? I have found that it depends on the access panel and the local authority working with them because the guys who are involved in that are the ones who are wheelchair users. In some cases, they are people who have got visual impairments as well. If you get them to do an audit of your town centre, then there is a good chance that you will sort a lot of those problems out, which helps just about everybody who has given what evidence here today. Is it not the case that we should maybe be looking at that as a way forward? I found that I used to obviously be a remshire councils representative in the remshire one. What a difference we made when we started doing work and not just moaning about things, and I think that it is about being more proactive from that perspective? Ms Brooks. Absolutely. That is one thing that we are working on at the moment, is looking for every access panel to become a statutory consultee. It is given the recognition in the local authorities to provide the advice and the recommendations that are needed within the initial planning stages of whether it will be a building or whether it will be parking. Absolutely. I fully agree with you there. The situation of the remshire access panel is that it has an accessible toilet that is fully accessible, apart from being on the wrong side of the building. I hope that we could get into it. It did not speak to the access panel at that stage, so it is one of those things that, if we get it at an early stage at planning, we can make that difference. There is a challenge here. I am going to be optimistic and say that the Scottish Government has good policies on transport, and we are going to try and reduce car use over time. We are at the most difficult point, but we are trying to get more people walking and cycling as policies are in place for that. We are trying to get people in public transport and their support for things such as car clubs. That will take a good amount of time, but it will improve neighbourhoods more generally. We should say that there is a problem today, but there are a lot of other solutions about how we manage our neighbourhoods that are available to us if we are bold enough in terms of helping people to meet their mobility needs in a different way. Does anyone else have a question? No, George? No, okay, thank you. We certainly do seem to live in a society where town centres, streetscapes and housing states are designed more for people with cars than to allow people to get around. You can just see the difficulty that people have and the ease with which people with cars seem to get around towns and delivery vehicles, too. I am very sympathetic to the aims of the bill and the suggestions that people have offered today to the committee. However, where I would be concerned though is in cases where there is not congestion. All the examples today have been thinking about situations where there is congestion, and people do find it difficult to move around. However, imagine the other side of this, where there is not any congestion. I know some housing states where there are hardly any cars, and that bill would create an offence if a van turned up to deliver a telly when there is no problem being created. Could I have the panel's views on that side of it? Are there consequential effects of the bill that would create an offence where really there are no problems being evident by people delivering goods and so on to people's houses where there are not any examples of congestion? Could we inevitably heading towards a set of compromises here, exemptions and discretions and so on and so forth? Or do we need loading and loading exemptions that Mr Campbell mentioned? I would certainly like to move it forward and improve the situation, but I would not like to see us creating anomalies and further problems because of it. Mr Campbell, first please. I agree entirely, and I'm sorry to repeat myself, but we're happy with sections 2 and 3 of the bill, double parking and the drop kerf, not a problem. All we're saying is that, at the moment, we've got in the highway quota, it points out in the legislation that says that if necessary, we need to do certain things, which probably aren't going to make people too happy, but we do have a job to do, and that's to deliver the goods. So there are occasions when we will be a bit longer, we might have to go into the kerf, and I gave an example there with a bread lorry. He's just trying to make a delivery, he's already committed to offences under the proposed regulations. Mr Campbell, the photo is not particularly great from my perspective anyway, because I'm not particularly good at looking at darker things. One of the things that has been highlighted by folks before is that delivery drivers seem to think that they have a divine right to park right in front of the building that they're delivering to, rather than offloading a little bit away and maybe taking the pallets or cages or whatever it is, a little bit further along. Would you like to comment on that? Well, I'm no doubt that that does happen, because it's all human nature. If those matters are continuing, then we would need to know about it and we can take action within our own systems. What action could you take to stop one of your members from maybe blocking a road, a pavement in an area that is causing some grief? Well, if it was a continuing problem, then if there were members, and in this particular case, this company isn't a member of ours and that's why we took the photograph, then we could expel them from membership. The catch-out system is the traffic commissioner. The traffic commissioner is in charge of all heavy goods vehicle operations in the UK and Scotland. We have a Scottish traffic commissioner. Regularly, companies will get called to account to public inquiry in matters of safety and danger. If a company was proved to be maybe causing danger on their loading procedures, then they could end up in front of the traffic commissioner and possibly lose their licence to run their vehicles. And how many times has that happened in, say, the past year? Well, that's the point I'm making. We don't seem to have any complaints about lorries parking on the kerfs. If they are, they're not bringing to our attention. Anyone else on Mr Coffey's point? Ms Briggs? I just wanted to touch on the fact that the majority of our members don't actually they're not against the exemption of lorries parking for a short period to get on with their job. They realise that day-to-day activities have to happen. But one of the comments that have been made is to make sure that certain provisions should be put in place so that the driver should be available to move the vehicle to allow a disabled person over the mobility problem to continue their journey. Many times comments have been made that the driver is not available or won't move the vehicle. So there's attitude problems as well. It's not just obviously legislative. There's attitude problems that obviously need to be educated underneath this as well. But certain provisions put in place that could obviously work. Ms Horzbryr, do you want to come in there? Yes, a little bit. For somebody that can't seem, the chances are that if they can't see at all, the chances are that they're just going to hit the lorry. They're going to come in contact with lorry or come in contact with the wing mirror. But I can't think of a time where somebody's moved their lorry. Obviously, the larger vehicle, the more—I have to say the word dangerous—it actually is. But I've not come across a time where folk are willing to move the tend to be asked to wait. On Willie's point, in terms of an estate, an area where there's not really a problem, but a lorry parks up on the curb and there's someone in that area with a visual impairment, does that actually make the situation more dangerous for that person with a visual impairment because they're not used to that happening in the area? You've answered your own question. It's the unexpected obstacles. If you know that your street is full of parked vehicles, then it doesn't make it better, but you know that they're there. But coming up against an unexpected obstacle, then yes, that actually does make it worse. But if there's no congestion, I would have to query why there may be parking on the pavement. If there's no congestion, maybe they could park slightly further away. Sorry, it's just a practical thing, Willie. No, I'm just thinking that I do know estates in my constituency where there's no cars. There's no cars on the street, so along comes Mr Campbell's van with the telly on it and they can't even park there or load or unload. Is that what we're saying we want? Do we recognise that that's an issue? Certainly when it's congestion in town centres are crammed full and all these problems are recreated, absolutely, we have to do something about it, but does the bill create that anomaly? Where there's no problem being manifest, we're creating an offence? My understanding is no, but is there any, Ms Briggs? It's earlier again, it's about quality for everybody. Anybody could move into that street, that new town and be new to the area and have a disability and then be affected, so you can't assume that because there's no current problems that there will be no problems in the future, so we have to think about making a society that's equal for everybody. Ms Hodgebride, do you want to come back in again there? Maybe I'm misreading her signals. I think you're misreading her signals, actually. I can't talk, though. Or do you go if you want to? No, no, yes. Okay, thank you very much. Mr Hay, sorry. I think we're looking at areas where there is a particular problem and that's where the enforcement will be right. The enforcement resources, as has been said, is very limited. You're not going to go to these estates, and it's really a tool that will be concentrated where there's real problems, and it's probably also outside a lot of the existing control parking zones, because there's already enforcement there and people generally won't behave themselves, and there's probably yellow lines down, so we're looking at particular circumstances here, but it does send a signal to people that if you can avoid it, don't park on the pavement where people at the moment say it's an easy option, I'll just bounce up on the pavement. The big issue with that, actually, is that pavements are not designed for vehicles, so in that state, you're running large vehicles over a pavement, bouncing them up the kerb, damaging those pavements, then becoming trip hazards, which is another problem for groups. There's another objective behind this bill, and that is to protect the actual infrastructure that we've got, unless we start designing pavements to be parked on, which is going to be very, very expensive. We need to do what's in this bill. It's just to draw the committee's attention to Police Scotland's evidence, which basically reiterates what Mr Hayes just said, and that's that the new legislation will provide the police and local authorities where appropriate with the necessary legislation to take action, where there's a problem. I think that's the crux of the issue as well, and I think that Psych on Scotland and their evidence as well said that it will enable local authorities and police to tackle this where there are hotspots. Where is a problem that can be addressed? One of the things, and I'm going to be the devil's advocate again, is that some folk have suggested that all of this can be dealt with by common sense, but it seems that common sense has kind of gone out of the window in certain places in terms of this issue, where folks are finding it difficult to navigate their neighbourhoods. What have you got to say to those folks who think that there should be no additional legislation and that common sense should apply rather than creating new laws? I thought to put my hand up, so I misconstru. What is common sense? It's in the eyes of whoever decides it. Can it be dealt with by common sense? If it could be, I think that we would be there now. I don't know what common sense is, because you need some knowledge of the impact that this is having, and we can't assume that everybody understands the impact of parking at pavements and over-drop kerbs has on people. My answer is that I don't think that it can be dealt with through common sense. I wish it was, and I welcome the folk who apply all that appropriately. I think that it gets back to having what I always called the three E's, which is an education for people, and encouragement to do the right thing, and then enforcement. I think that you have to educate folk of the impact that is having, and change that attitude. I'm under no doubt that, given clarity, some attitudes will change, because it is just knowing the impact. However, I think that there's a role probably if this goes forward, that the Scottish Government does look at a sort of education programme. In terms of whether there is a problem and that can be addressed through common sense, I think that the streets outside or front doors are evidence that that's not the case. My advice to people who say that is maybe go for a walk, go for a cycle, or go and get a visual impairment training from guide dogs, and you'll see that it is an issue. For cycling, that is particularly an issue, because one of the biggest barriers we have to people getting on a bike and making everyday journeys by bike are safety concerns. It seems like a fairly easy fix to be able to tighten up parking in front of dropcares, to stop double parking where there's a problem, to stop pavement parking as well. It would seem to add a bit of coherence to what's already there. It's a Scottish Government policy to enable more people to travel actively every day. That legislation would support that. In terms of being new legislation, we need to remember that in London, we've had that since 1974 and it operates and local authorities have integrated it into the other traffic management. I have every confidence that Scottish local authorities would be able to do the same. They've got a template to work on that's been developed up over a number of years. Sadly, common sense, not everybody has that common sense, but education and awareness raising around disability issues. It would be important to take that forward. Amongst many other things as well. One way to do that is not just about coming up with your own promotional campaign. Work with local communities, for example, access panels to take that forward. Make sure that the information is accessible and inclusive for everybody to make sure that everybody gets the message. It's not just about putting a campaign together, it's about how you put that campaign together and who you do it with. It's also an issue of balance. We need to balance the needs of a range of users, pavements, roadways, etc. There is an element of common sense that has to come into the framing of legislation. That's been acknowledged by a number of the respondents. There are circumstances. As I say, I've mentioned bus services. People with mobility issues also rely on bus services and it's important that those services are able to access our public roads. Mr Campbell, do you want to say anything here? I'm going to have to put my blinkers on here. Our concern at this stage is probably not the additional legislation that's a lack of certain legislation disappearing from the issue. As I've mentioned, there's the Road Traffic Regulation Act. Apart from that, I don't think that I should say any more. Okay. Thank you very much. I thank you all for your evidence today. I'll suspend for a few minutes for a change of witnesses. As I mentioned earlier, we now move on to our second panel of witnesses. Considering this time the implementation and enforcement of the bill, I welcome Murray Hannah from Fife Council, Superintendent Fraser Canglish from Police Scotland, David Armitage from Aberdeenshire Council, and speaking on behalf of the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland, and Donald Gibson from South Lanarkshire Council. Do you have any opening statements that you'd like to make? Please. Mr Hannah, please. Thanks, convener. Just basically to say thank you for the opportunity to speak to your committee today in this consultation event, which indeed, of course, is a very important piece of work. Fife Council recognises the difficulties that obstructions can cause in some situations, including parking, abords, waste bins, et cetera. We do see that there are issues that this bill is trying to address. We agree with the intentions of the bill. The bill seeks to reinforce on already wide-ranging legislation in terms of Road Traffic Acts, the Road Scotland Act and the Highway Code, and we are particularly pleased that the bill recognises that not all instances of footway parking can be banned or should be banned. We believe that the bill and the intentions of the bill change very well with the place-making principles of designing streets for people. However, some of the challenges will come from retrofitting some of the intentions and the details of this bill and legislation and the controls that it would bring into established streets. Okay. Anyone else wish to make an opening statement? Mr Armitage, please. Yes. In as much as I'm speaking for Scots, I will be emphasising things that I think would be of universal concern. So I think all councils have concern about resources at the moment, and anything that affects resources would be something that they would want very careful consideration taken on. Road and traffic legislation is a very complex framework, and we've all had past experience of trying to implement legislation that perhaps doesn't quite mean what it's intended to mean or has unintended consequences, especially with primary legislation such as this that does cause problems. The main thrust of my evidence has been to point out areas where perhaps in the bill that is currently drafted there may be issues. Mr Gibson, do you want to add anything at this point, superintendent? Okay. Let me start off with the question that I posed at the beginning of the last panel, and that's roundabout current legislation. Why is it that we kind of make current legislation work in terms of dealing with some of the issues that have been highlighted to us by many, many people in terms of footway parking? Let's start with you, superintendent, because I've had conversations over the years with a number of police officers about folk parking on pavements and making the argument that they've obviously driven on to that pavement to park there, which driving on pavements is an offence. And yet the response to get back is not much we can do about that unless we actually see it happening. Yes, it's quite a complex issue. In the papers there were two pieces of legislation quoted, one being the Road to Scotland Act, which makes it an offence to drive on a footway, to lead a horse on a footway and also to cycle on a footway as well. The second piece of legislation that was quoted in the papers was the Highways Act, which is an actual fact only for England and Wales. It's not within Scotland. On driving on a footway, it is legislation that can be used, but it's quite cumbersome. If a vehicle is parked on the pavement, you have to identify who owns the vehicle, then you have to make a requirement on the owner to state who is driving it, then you have to make a requirement on that named person as to whether or not they drove it at the time it was parked on the footpath, and then after the circumstances would be reported to the procreate of fiscal with regards to whether or not the defence would be taken to court. It's quite lengthy and cumbersome. Perhaps the new piece of legislation, if it's enacted, would create a more focused means in which to enforce legislation, should that be required? Have you got any indication, Superintendent, of how many folks say in the past year have been done on Scotland for driving on pavements? No, but I don't have that information with me today. Do you think that it's many? No, I don't think it's many at all. Could it be zero? I could say with certainty, but I think that the numbers would be low. Could you provide us with that information, because I think that that would be very useful for the committee? Any of the other gentlemen wish to comment on the existing legislation and whether it's good enough as it stands to deal with the difficulties that have been highlighted? Mr Gibson, please. I think that there is quite a number of pieces of legislation that we can use. At the moment, we use traffic regulation orders. One of the statements that I heard you make earlier on was that local authorities don't use traffic regulation orders to prohibit footway parking. In South Lanarkshire, we've used that legislation on three occasions to prohibit footway parking, where that matter has been brought to our attention, and where other means of stopping the footway parking weren't feasible. The first thing that we would normally have a look at is putting down standard waiting restrictions that relate to the road and the footway, but in some residential areas that's not necessarily appropriate. We then look at putting ball arms down, but if the footways are too narrow, we'll be putting the ball arms down in the road. That can cause problems. We go through those steps and, as I said, on a number of occasions, we've actually used traffic regulation orders to prohibit footway parking. The existing regulations and powers are there for local authorities to do that if they wish. In terms of the Road Scotland Act, section 1292 says that a person who, without lawful authority, or reasonably excused places or deposits anything on the road includes the footway. If somebody places a car on a footway as to obstruct a passage or endanger road users, they commit an offence, so my reading of that would be that they don't need to see a vehicle getting driven on or know who necessarily drove the vehicle onto the footway just to deposit in of it, because of those problems. What's your response to that, Superintendent? It's a legal interpretation, which, of course, I said a further, just as the piece would make a consideration of. I mean, I know it says any person, but you would still have to try to find out who that person was. Section 172 of the Road Traffic Act is to give us a place of legal means to require a register keeper of the car or anybody who has information to state who was driving it at a particular time, but that can't be used for every piece of legislation. I would have to check up to see whether, for what's just been quoted, whether we could legally or not make a requirement of a driver under those terms to state who was driving it. It is quite complex, and it is down to different interpretations, which may or may not be upheld at court. In terms of the legislation that Mr Gibson has just mentioned, have you any indication of how many folks have been done for that offense? I've been in the police for 28.5 years. I'm not aware of that ever, having been used for somebody who's parked on footpath. Could we maybe get that figure from you as well? I'll try, yes. Thank you very much. Mr Armitage, Mr Hannah, do you want to come in about existing legislation? I would just comment that there is existing legislation in Scotland under section 19 of the Road Traffic Act, which does make it an offence to park a heavy commercial vehicle on a footway, but I'm not really aware of that making that much difference. And I'm not quite sure how much difference a new yet another offence being introduced would make. Mr Hannah, please. I was just going to say, convener, that where in decriminalised parking, and some of the changes in terms of the regulations in legislation, I feel sometimes as pushing council officers and police officers a bit apart, I think there's an opportunity, and it's been mentioned, where we do need to work closer together. In Fife, we work very closely with some of the local community police to deal with some of those issues. Quite often there are local problems caused by local people that need local solutions. We use that liaison and the opportunity to do that. We use a range of traffic orders as well, to introduce wait restrictions where that's appropriate. We introduce advisory H bar markings to keep driveways clear and drop care crossings clear etc. But it's about working with people to find local solutions using the existing legislation that we have available. But what it sounds like to me is a little bit of a hodgepodge here, because you've mentioned all of these different bits and pieces of legislation. Obviously, South Lanarkshire seems to be doing something different with traffic orders, but with all of that, we seem to have some confusion. We don't seem to have many if any offence is actually being recorded. Does the draft bill help to simplify matters in some regards in terms of dealing with some of the problems that folk are facing on a day and daily basis? I think that, certainly from Police Scotland's respect, we feel that it provides some much-needed clarity to the situation. I think that I've heard other witnesses say today that roads and footways are a shared wood space, but they are often special to cab drivers that seem to think that their need takes precedence over everyone else's, and of course it doesn't. There are pieces of legislation currently in existence. When it's just been spoken about depositing things on a road, of course a footway is classified as a road as really meant to be a load such as building materials or items rather than specific vehicles. That would be my interpretation of it. That specific bill provides that clarity. From my perspective, it's quite well written. It would provide the ability for the police to use discretion as well, meaning that that's not going to get taken away. I don't, for a minute, think that if the bill is enacted the next day in the areas in which the parking is not being decriminalised, I don't, for a minute, the police will issue lots of tickets that will be used for specific community concerns that have been spoken about already. It will be used during campaigns. Education, engineering and enforcement is very much in that order when it comes to police enforcement. Any other gentlemen want to come in there about the simplification issue, Mr Armitage? I think that at least in respect to heavy commercial vehicles it would complicate the issue, because it would have two pieces of legislation both covering the same thing with different sets of exemptions, which would make the situation more complex rather than simply. Superintendent, would you like to respond to that? I'm not aware of what the complications would be. Mr Armitage, would you like to explain the complications, please? You could have a situation where a vehicle was parked in accordance with section 19 of the Road Traffic Act in accordance with one of the exemptions for loading or unloading heavy goods vehicle on the footway, but they could then be committing in a fence under another act that covered exactly the same area. I think that it would be difficult for people to understand if there were two acts covering exactly the same thing with different exemptions. I would have to go ahead and look into that, sorry. Okay. Mr Gibson, where are you indicating there? John Lawson, please. Thank you. Good morning. Just to go back to one of the answers that Mr Gibson gave, you indicated that, in South Lanarkshire, you have prosecuted or fined three drivers. Is that correct? You introduced three traffic regulation orders covering three different sections of footways in three different areas. Have you prosecuted anybody under those regulations or fined anybody under those regulations? No, the regulations have worked. There are no contraventions. There are no contraventions, so you just introduced three regulations and that stopped all the break trees that you felt were taking place. It might be useful to let us know what those three regulations are, so we could speak to the proposer of the bill, because if it is resolved in South Lanarkshire, it might help to resolve it in other areas in Scotland. In relation to Mr Superintendent Cairndish's response, when the convener asked about taking someone or trying to take someone who has breached road traffic regulations in part on the pavement, you indicated that the place would then have to get the secure name of the driver, the owner of the vehicle, who was driving the vehicle at the time, a witness to say who was driving the vehicle at the time, then you would need to submit a report to Procurator Fiscal's office to take action against the individual if it was identified that there was a breach. That seemed very complicated, and I think that you were alluding that it was a very complicated process to go through where that breach was applied. Is there no way that fixed penalty fines being imposed by the police or other traffic enforcement officers, local authority traffic enforcement officers, would actually resolve some of those issues that you have identified? The defence is to drive. It is not to pass to drive, so it would only be the police that would have the power. As for the current legislation in a local authority, I mean somebody who does not have the powers that a police officer has to require a driver or a registered keeper to state, then who was using the vehicle at that time, it is only something that a police officer could make on another person. Ultimately, the defence would not be to park, it would be to drive, so again we would have to identify who the driver was and do you quite rightly say that there would have to be a secondary piece of evidence to back that up? The issue for me is clearly that if the owner of the vehicle commits an offence to be committed, then surely the owner of the vehicle has to take some responsibility for that offence being committed. If parking on a pavement is an offence, then the owner of that vehicle has some liability surely in relation to allowing that to happen, because the defence for everybody, based on what you are saying, even if we introduce this legislation, could be that, well, sorry, I was not driving the vehicle, I was somebody else who was driving the vehicle, I am not prepared to tell you who was driving the vehicle and therefore no action could be taken because you do not know, there is no witness to say who was driving the vehicle at the time the offence was caused. How do we change the legislation to ensure that those individuals who are reaching this new legislation can be dealt with in an appropriate manner? For the current legislation, it would only be the driver of the vehicle who would be charged with driving on a footway. If there were certain circumstances, the owner, the register keeper, could be charged with aiding in a betting. The offence would have to be evidence to prove that. That is under the current legislation. Under the new act, it would be a fixed penalty offence, which would be almost like a parking ticket on the windscreen. The penalty would be levied against the owner or register keeper of the car, which, as a far quicker, is a sharper and shorter means in which to enforce and perhaps deal with high levels of instances of offences. One of my earlier questions to the earlier panel was about the consistency of enforcement, not only in local authority areas, we have got 32 local authorities, but we have also got the consistency of enforcement or potential enforcement by Police Scotland. I was just speaking to my colleague next to me during the short break that we had. The issue of consistency between, for example, I live in central Scotland and how someone parking on a pavement in Motherwell is dealt with compared to someone parking on a pavement in Hamilton. Clearly, we have heard from Mr Gibson in South Lanarkshire that they have brought in new regulations, which have dealt with on-paved parking, but in Motherwell, a driver may find that there is no action taken against him for committing effectively the same offence in Motherwell as compared to Hamilton. How do we ensure that we get consistency if the legislation is introduced throughout Scotland, when a driver goes to any town or village in Scotland, they know that they will potentially be dealt with in the same way as they would be dealt with in other areas? Within the non-decolonialised areas where the police would enforce this, what you have just said would be challenging because the guidance to police officers, and obviously we would create our own kind of internal procedures and processes, but the general guidance would be one of using discretion where possible. However, if there is a community concern or if there is a real emerging issue, it would be focused upon. As I said earlier, I do not suggest for a minute that in every areas of Scotland the police would be able to issue parking tickets with regard to this new offence, but I do not think that that would happen. It would be used for specific areas and specific concerns, but you are right in that. That would probably be quite challenging to create consistency. I do not think that a consistent enforcement policy could be created other than that it would be used as a tool that is proportionate to the circumstances in that area, and it would have to be backed up by a good education strategy as well. I think that one difficulty that the committee has in finding answers to these questions about effectiveness and enforcement is that we do not have any evidence in front of us from the former Greater London Council area where there has been legislation along these lines, as has been said since 1974, as to how effective that is and whether it makes enforcement any easier. Unfortunately, none of us here can offer any evidence on that, but I think that it would be helpful to the committee in deciding on that if there were some sort of study available on whether things were actually any different in the former Greater London Council area to surrounding areas that do not have that legislation, whether there is any effective difference. Perhaps it would have been a good thing for the promoters of the bill to seek out such evidence. I did look and see if I could find any studies on that, but I was unable to. I speak for the member in charge of the bill, but we will have the ability to question the member in charge of the bill next week, so we will possibly ascertain what the knowledge is about Greater London and various other places. However, the committee itself will be looking at all aspects and will probably guide the clerks to find the information about any studies that have taken place, not that I am preempting what the committee may or may not decide. Mr Gibson. Should the bill be enacted, I consider that given the current mix of decriminalised and non-decriminalised authorities within Scotland, there will be considerable inconsistency in terms of enforcement. It is very noticeable at the moment in relation to the two councils that Mr Gibson mentioned—North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire, one where there is enforcement and one where there isn't. The other part is in relation to the response that the decriminalised authorities can give. Most of them are small authorities other than the three or four larger cities, who only carry out enforcement between, for example, within South Lanarkshire. It is eight o'clock in the morning until six o'clock in the evening. We don't have any enforcement out with these times, so the police have obviously got 24-7 enforcement. Most of the issues and problems that I can see happening in residential areas where people will be complaining about footway parking in the evening, we as an authority given our current set-up wouldn't be able to deal with that, but the police would, so there's a possibility for inconsistencies there. Mr Hannah, do you want to come in at this point? I agree with those sentiments. In Fife, we've got 20 parking attendants, and certainly a number of the issues that may come around in relation to all of this will possibly be in some of the residential streets. There won't be herds of parking attendants available to wander around these streets on a regular basis to observe these issues as they happen in real time. The effect will be that it will have to be built into beets. It may be several days before parking patrols can actually look at these areas, and it will skew resources away from some of the busier town centre areas where some of the bigger issues happen in terms of congestion and parking. On that particular issue of decriminalised, criminalised, the use of parking wardens, attendants, whatever you call them and your various local authorities, and Mr Hannah, you've just highlighted some of the things that they currently do. From my own experience in terms of difficulties, the city wardens in Aberdeen were often used for, shall we call them, sting operations to deal with a particular problem, and after that happened a few times, the problem disappeared. Is that not the kind of thing that you could envisage happening, Mr Hannah? Absolutely. Some of the solutions that I talked about earlier on were local solutions for local issues. One of the things that we've been doing in Fife and working very closely with Police Scotland in the Fife division is initiatives like park safe and kerbsafe, where we target certain areas, and particularly around school frontages. We've been doing a lot of that work over the last year or two, and that's exactly what you're talking about. It's actually bringing together council officers, parking attendants, local community police and others in concerted efforts to do a focused encouragement and awareness-raising exercise backed up with enforcement where that's required. I think that type of approach can sometimes produce good results. If this bill was in place, that's the kind of thing that you could envisage happening in areas where there were difficulties. I would say, without any doubt, that if this bill achieved royal ascend, there would be much better clarity in terms of enforcement that the superintendent was talking about. It certainly would be a good tool in terms of providing teeth to those interventions. Mr Gibson, before we move on to anything else, I want to go back to the three traffic orders that South Lanarkshire has put in place. I'd be interested to know the reasons for those traffic orders, how big an area of these traffic orders cover, how difficult it was to get those traffic orders in place, because from my own past experience, it often took half a lifetime to get a traffic order in place, all that seemed like. Could you give us an idea of what all of that is about, please? Yes, there are relatively short areas, very small areas where there were particular problems. I do have, before and after photographs here, if you would like to... We can have a look at those, please. If you just want to continue, Mr Gibson. The traffic regulation orders were promoted under section 1 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, in the normal fashion, using the procedures regulations that we use for all traffic regulation orders, and took the usual six to nine months from start to finish. Six to nine months? Yes, between six and nine months. The area that is shown in the photographs is a very, very small area, indeed, a tiny little cul-de-sac. Are all three of the orders in areas that small? Relatively so, yes. So there were obviously particular difficulties in those areas that were easily resolved? It was the best way of resolving those particular issues, because we wanted to allow people to continue to park on the road, but not on the footway, so we prohibited parking on one side of the road and allowed parking on the other side of the road, rather than on the footways on both sides of the road, because there was a particular issue. You can see the density of the housing in that area. Would it be difficult to implement a road traffic order on a larger stretch of road, where there may be these kinds of difficulties? From a technical point of view, there is absolutely no difference at all in promoting a traffic regulation order over a wider area. From a practical point of view? A practical point of view would not be the length of time to put together the actual order itself. However, during the promotion of the order, the members of the public have the right to make comment or objection. The wider the area is, the more likely we are to get some forms of adverse comments or objections, which we would have to deal with. In that tiny little area, how much do you think it costs to promote the order there, including the signage and all of the rest of it? Probably about £1,500. £1,500 for that tiny area. If you were going to do a large stretch, that would be much, much more. This draft bill, as it is, would possibly save you a lot of money, rather than having to do a hodgepodge of various orders. Yes, it would. The reverse of that is in places where we want to be able to permit people to be able to park on footways due to the density of housing. We need to go through the same process, and it is likely to be larger areas. Therefore, the cost will still be there. The draft bill, as it is, would allow you some flexibility in terms of whether or not to enforce in certain areas recognising local difficulties. I did not see anything in the bill that gave us leeway in terms of enforcement. The regulation from my reading of the bill covered all footways unless we promote an order to say. Otherwise, if the regulation is in place, we would require to enforce it. You could pass one ginormous order, exempting all the areas that you wanted to exempt. My understanding is not with two... Sorry, in terms of one order, but it would be lots of different speech. Anyone else want to come in on that point? This issue is where I was referring earlier on to the challenges of retrofitting this into existing streets and listening to some of the comments that were made earlier. Looking at the background work to the bill, some of the cost things that were done are very rough, but there were figures there talking about potentially something like 10 exempt areas in Scotland, costing something like £0.5 million. I believe that we are not very figures, because none of this work has been done, of course, but I would believe that we would be involved in potentially dozens of exempt areas across various locations in Fife. The nature of the settlements, we have not just in Fife, but in many places. In terms of that exemption, exactly the same question that I posed to Mr Gibson, you could create one super order if you like, exempting all of the places that you thought in Fife should be exempted. Potentially, I would say, we could promote one order, but the point that I am making here, as we were talking about, is not the technicalities and the legal issues about technically making the order. It is about the background work that would have to be done before you get to the point that you have an order and a schedule to make. What I am saying is that, in Fife, I reckon that we are going to end up with a significant number of exempt areas. The reason for that is that many of the streets and many of our small towns and villages are designed for horse and wagon in many cases. We have all the coastal villages around East Newt. We have many of the small and mining villages in the south of Fife. The point that was made earlier on is that the way that we live our lives today and the amount of car ownership that we have in many families in those areas, I am envisaging that what we will potentially do with this bill is that we will swap one problem for another bigger problem. We will end up then having to manage displaced parking issues and chasing the problem around various different streets. That was really just the point that I was trying to make in terms of the size of exempt areas. By the sounds of it from your knowledge here today, you already have a fair indication of what areas you would exempt, which may be an entire village in the East Newt of Fife, because you know already that it is never going to work to the degree that it should because of the horse and cart scenario. You have already got that knowledge, have you not? I have local knowledge, and I am confident in that knowledge that there will be a number of locations, potentially small villages, whole villages and perhaps smaller towns, where those exemptions may have to cover those larger areas. I asked the previous panel about A and B roads and private roads, because as it stands at the moment, the draft bill seems to exclude what is your opinion on that. I am quite content with the proposal and the bill where it will address all restricted streets. I do not think that there is any need for those bills to address unrestricted roads, whether they are A and B class roads in the rural environment or not. Any other comments on that? I think that the reference to restricted roads does actually give issues because it is very difficult for anybody to know what is a restricted road and what is not a restricted road unless they are very familiar with road traffic legislation and have copies of individual orders. The restricted roads by default are C class and unclassified roads with street lighting. It is possible for orders to be passed making A and B class roads in urban areas restricted roads, but that is not the way that the Scottish Government advises councils to do that. The current advice that I have got in front of me says that all mandatory speed limits other than those on restricted roads should be made by order under section 84 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act. That includes the making of a 30-mile-an-hour speed limit on a class A or B road in Scotland and any class C or unclassified road that is unlit. If somebody is following current Scottish Government advice, A and B class roads will not be restricted roads in the meaning of the term in the Road Traffic Regulation Act. Some of them might be, and you cannot tell by looking at the signs. You can tell whether a road has a 30-mile-an-hour speed limit or not easily, but you cannot tell whether it is a restricted road or not. For the public to understand it, I think that the legislation would probably have to be changed. What you are basically saying, Mr Armitage, in layman's terms, is that you think that A and B roads and private roads should be included in the bill? What I am saying is that, at the moment, most but not all A and B roads would be excluded as it is currently drafted, and all private roads would be excluded. It would be easier to deal with if all A and B roads and other roads were included in the bill. I think that there may be other ways of phrasing the legislation, which could be by reference to the speed limit, which might be easier to understand. Mr Gibson, please. All roads should be included if legislation goes ahead, including private roads, because a private road is just a road that is maintained by somebody else. That is a plain and simple answer that I like, Mr Gibson. Just for clarification, Mr Gibson, you said that private roads are included. Yes. My understanding is that there are certain issues regarding enforcement in private roads. There are no issues. So that is quite clear, quite definite. If it is a private road, then the place or traffic information— I think that both Mr Gibson and Mr Armitage gave a resounding no there. It would be interesting to hear from the superintendent. I think that we are defer to the experts in that. Thank you, Superintendent. Jane Baxter, please. The question might have been answered already, but is an unadopted road the same as a private road? Mr Gibson, we have got agreement there. Anything else, Jane? That was just a point of clarification. Thank you. Gentlemen, what do you think would be the main barriers in terms of enforcing this bill? You have touched upon criminalised and decriminalised areas. You have touched upon traffic wardens, city wardens or parking attendants, whatever you use in your particular area. What are the other impediments? Mr Gibson. The main problem is going to be in areas of very dense housing, where there is insufficient parking to be able to accommodate all of the vehicles. The local authorities will get pressure put on them to enforce the regulations. Secondly, once we do start to enforce it to provide additional off-street parking in residential areas, which is not the remit of the local authority, the local authorities do not have budgets for providing residential parking. That will be a major issue. My authority does not have decriminalised parking because we are a rural authority. We could not carry out enforcement. If we did have decriminalised parking, I could see difficulties because we would not have the resources to appoint additional staff at the moment, and sending people around a large rural area would be quite difficult, but in our case it would fall on the police. Are rural authorities that have decriminalised parking or authorities with large rural areas to send folk around Aberdeenshire? It seems to me that the council sends folk around Aberdeenshire to do other things, so what makes this so difficult? I do not think that we would be in a position to respond to something if we had a report. However, with our existing parking attendants who work on the council car parks, they would go to a particular area, but they would not be in a position to respond to reports from a diffuse rural area and to dot around the place. As I said earlier on, realistically what would happen, particularly with decriminalised parking and what would happen in Fife, is that if there were any issues in outwith town centre residential rural areas, whether they were near the town centre or whether they were out in the sticks, we would arrange for parking attendants to patrol those areas or to respond to any concerns, but it would not be an instant real-time issue. It would need to be planned in to planned action in terms of expanding beats or whatever, so the expectations might not match the reality of what would happen and the timescales that would happen. I also fear that one of the potential issues is that we will end up getting involved in a whole load of neighbour disputes because in relation to parking in residential areas, quite often, local issues are caused by local people, which require local solutions. I sometimes think that what we could find happening here is that we are drawn into the middle of all those local neighbour disputes that then say, the legislation is there, why aren't you coming to sort this out, someone needs to be here right now. That is going to put a significant challenge on local authorities to deal with all the other priorities in having to deal with those local issues. Some of those disputes probably already exist. That is probably one of the reasons why you did your three orders, was it, Mr Gibson? If I could turn to the financial memorandum and the finance committee has not looked at that yet, I am well aware that you have all talked about resources. After today's statement by the chancellor of the extractor, I think that we will all be talking about resources or the lack of them for a fair while to come. I am also well aware of the amount of money that is often put against the raising of orders and various other things by Rhodes officers having been in a local authority for 13 years myself. I know that again everybody around the table, apart from Cameron, has said the same experiences realistically. Do you want to give a comment about the financial memorandum? It is very difficult to put some sort of cost on it, but we have recently went through a new piece of legislation, which was the Disabled Persons Park in Places Scotland Act 2009, which made sure that we were to put in some regulations. Within South Lanarkshire, we spent just over £600,000 on that piece of legislation to put in the necessary signing and lining of all the Disabled Persons Park in Places Scotland. One of the other things that is thrown up as well is that we have got to maintain that and keep it going. I can see within this legislation, while we have got an initial capital outlay that the council will need to find in order to bring it in, it will continue to require updating on a very regular basis as things change in various areas. As Carnot car ownership increases as it has been recently, there is a possibility that there is just spiralling year after year. In terms of DPPPP, which has been mentioned, so I will just take the opportunity to talk on that very briefly. Yes, we introduced a substantial number of enforceable bays as a result of that legislation. I do not have an exact figure, and it is hard to say, but I know that we are probably talking around about half a million that we have spent in putting the infrastructure. I am talking about something completely and utterly different from the proposals around this draft bill. The bill that was put forward by Jackie Baillie was pretty resource intensive, and I think that that was pretty well known to begin with, was it not? Yes. Where it is similar, what I am talking about mainly is infrastructure costs in terms of signs and lines, to make these bays enforceable, and that is where the significant part of the cost has come from. What do you mean enforceable bays? The disabled person's part... Sorry, you are going back to that. I am talking about this bill. Sorry, I thought you were talking about the DPPPP. In terms of this bill, where I see the biggest cost coming, as I spoke about earlier on, is exempt areas. In Fife, I envisage a significant number of those, and to introduce an exempt area will require some heavy street engineering in terms of signing and lining. Apart from the cluttering issue that we will get, there will be an infrastructure cost attached to that if you are introducing town-wide exemption areas, and that is where the cost will come. Why do you think that that will require a huge amount of signing and lining? If you look at London, where London has areas that are exempt from the bill, it has to introduce signs to indicate that parking is permitted on a footway, etc. We would similarly have to introduce additional signage to give effect to the TRO that we would have to introduce to override the bill. Sometimes, I think, we overly complicate things, because I do not actually see the need for signing anyway, to be honest with you, but that is my personal opinion. We overdo the signs in almost every aspect of road traffic orders. To implement a road traffic order, you need to have a level of signing and lining to make it clear. I agree with comments previously made that, in London, they normally mark out parking bays partly on the footway, partly on the carriageway, and signs indicating that it is permitted. I do not see any real alternative to that. You might be able to make a special area with signs going in and out of a special parking control area, but I am not quite sure whether that would work. I would defer to colleagues with more experience of special parking control areas. Mr Gibson? We would want, if the bill came in, to permit people to park partly on the footway, but only over certain sections or lengths of road in a residential area. For example, you would not want them parking near a junction where it was going to block visibility, because, at the moment, while people may well park in those areas and, to my mind, causing an obstruction, the local authority could not mark a parking bay in that area, so we need to start and stop it along each length of streets and delineate the beginning and the end of those parking areas. The traffic signs regulations in general directions 2002 is a legislation that dictates what signing and lining is required, and there is a regulatory need to put in a sign at the start and the end of the regulation and every 60 metres therein. Superintendent, do you have anything to say on the financial memorandum? With regard to Police Scotland, we deal with a many other issues each day to keep community safety in Scotland, and if that was introduced, it would probably give more clarity towards that particular issue. Perhaps we would be non-cashable savings at that clarity, and there wouldn't be any extra costs incurred by Police Scotland. Thank you very much for your evidence today. I now close this meeting of the committee.