Capital grinds to a halt after Christmas decorations snarl-up

Published on Monday 9 November 2009 21:06

TRAFFIC gridlock spread across central Edinburgh during yesterday's morning rush hour, after lorries delivering equipment for the city's Christmas celebrations caused chaos.

The jams resulted in hundreds of buses thrown off schedule , with queues tailing back from Princes Street as far as the foot of Leith Walk.

Half of the Lothian Buses' fleet was caught up in the jams, with delays reported of more than an hour. Disruption to bus routes continued until lunchtime.

The problem was caused when two articulated lorries carrying equipment to Princes Street Garden encountered difficulties negotiating the Waverley Bridge-Market Street roundabout at 8:15am.

One lorry then tried to turn right from Waverley Bridge into Market Street, but again got into difficulties with the manoeuvre. It eventually managed to negotiate the junction and continued on to the Mound, and where it parked between the National Gallery of Scotland and Royal Scottish Academy. The other lorry had arrived with its delivery on the wrong day.

Lothian Buses said 250 of its buses were affected by the problem and bus commuters were soon tweeting their frustration on the Twitter website.

Neil Inglis wrote: "On the bus to work, usually takes 10 mins max, today I've been on for 30 and only 2/3rd the way there. Bloody Edinburgh traffic."

Tane Piper wrote: "Been on the bus for 40 minutes now! I hate Edinburgh traffic…"

Keith Mitchell said: "Supposedly they were bringing in the shows for Christmas. Good timing, eh?"

David Lesault said: "That explains it. Surely they have all night to do that rather than monday morning rush hour! Typical."

The City of Edinburgh Council said it was sorry and apologised to drivers and passengers for the delays.

A spokeswoman said: "Unfortunately, there were delays to Monday morning traffic as a load expected for Edinburgh's Christmas build was held-up by a combination of factors.

"One of the vehicles was very large and required extra time to manoeuvre.

"We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused to morning travel patterns.

"Every effort will be made to ensure that this doesn't happen again as we construct Edinburgh's fantastic Christmas offering."

However, a spokeswoman for Edinburgh's Christmas, which is organised for the city council by event producer She's Got It, downplayed the incident.

She said: "A lorry carrying equipment was manoeuvring at the junction for a few minutes, but it caused minimal disruption. The site manager could not see any signs of traffic building up."