Parking restrictions - 'The review needs to be a genuine one'

Few subjects are as sure to get us hot under the collar in Edinburgh as parking and how it is controlled by the local authority.

The city is probably already the most heavily regulated - some would say over-regulated - in Scotland when it comes to on-street parking.

Yet motorists searching for that elusive street with no parking restrictions are about to find their hunt will extend even further into the suburbs.

More than 70 streets and the homes of thousands of residents are about to be swallowed up by the seemingly ever-growing Controlled Parking Zone.

The expansion targets outlying neighbourhoods where commuters use the first streets outside the existing zone as unofficial park-and-ride spots, dumping their cars before catching the bus into the city centre.

The question of whether or not there is widespread demand for the new restrictions is hotly disputed. What is certain is that we will only know the true impact on these streets once the measures are in place and the results properly monitored.

The suspicion remains in some areas at least that car owners are simply being used as a revenue generator and the parking problem will only be shifted on to neighbouring streets.

At least on this occasion the restrictions can be described as proportionate. The 20 annual fee that motorists will have to pay for the privilege of parking outside their homes is not extortionate, while the restrictions will apply for only 90 minutes a day to specifically target the park-and-ride brigade and cause minimum disruption to other road users.

The review of the regulations promised by the council needs to be a genuine one and any that do not show a clear improvement should be scrapped.

On the blight side

Most people do not even bother reporting graffiti that blights their neighbourhoods simply because they do not expect whoever was responsible to be caught.

So it is encouraging to see the police making a string of arrests in connection with the spoiling of buildings all over the Capital.

Graffiti, like other vandalism, is undoubtedly low-level stuff compared with much of what the police have to deal with, but it can nevertheless have a big impact on local communities.

Those who are caught indulging in such antisocial behaviour deserve to be brought before the authorities and shown the error of their ways.