It's a fare cop for cabbies caught in Holyrood Park

TAXI drivers face fines for driving through Holyrood Park under a new crackdown on commercial vehicles using the area as a short cut.

Park bosses are seeking to enforce a ban on "white van man" after complaints from residents of nearby Duddingston Village about increased levels of speeding traffic.

It had been thought that taxi drivers would be exempt from the restrictions, which police officers began enforcing yesterday. Instead, two cabbies were among six drivers fined in the first few hours of the crackdown, which is being carried out by the police on behalf of Historic Scotland, the body which maintains the royal park.

The move to enforce the existing restrictions more stringently comes after it emerged park bosses were considering a ban on all traffic due to safety concerns over rising traffic levels in Duddingston Village. Throughout February drivers were stopped and made aware of the park's traffic regulations, which ban commercial vehicles and limit speeds to 30mph.

As of yesterday, any commercial vehicles which do not have a valid permit or exemption letter will be hit with a 30 fine. However, it remains unclear whether taxis with passengers are exempt.

The secretary of the Edinburgh Taxi Association, Raymond Davidson, said passengers would end up paying more in fares as a result of the move.

He said: "A number of drivers have already been booked. What we will have now is drivers being forced to take the long way round and the passenger in the back will have to pay. We've always used the park and there was never anything said about it. It's a main arterial route to us."

Councillor Eric Barry, himself a taxi driver, urged taxi drivers to challenge the fines.

He said: "As long as you don't have your light on in the park, then you are a car. All the drivers have to do is put off their light.

"If the drivers who were fined were driving with their lights off, then Historic Scotland are wrong and their fines will be overturned."

Last year it emerged that banning traffic altogether from Holyrood Park was one of a number of options being considered to reduce the level of vehicles in the area.

Residents in Duddingston Village say increasing numbers of vehicles have led to road safety concerns and a rising number of road rage incidents.Duddingston Village Conservation Society has called for an existing ban on commercial vehicles to be enforced, but has stopped short of calling for Holyrood Park to be closed to all traffic.

Councillor Gordon Mackenzie, the city's transport convener, said: "The council supports Historic Scotland in ensuring that traffic regulations in the park are properly enforced."