Tuesday September 23rd 2025
Parking on pavement in Midlothian
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Marie Sharp
Fines worth more than £110,000 have been issued to drivers parked on pavements across Midlothian since the council introduced a county-wide ban.
A report on parking penalties has revealed pavement parking has become the biggest cause of charges being handed out over the last year.
Between April last year, when the local authority began enforcement, and the end of June this year 1,134 penalty notices have been issued. The £100 fine can be reduced to £50 if paid early.
A meeting of the council’s police, fire and rescue board heard that between April and July this year alone over 300 fines were issued, with the second biggest offence of parking in a disabled bay without a blue badge in the same period sitting at 168 fines.
Councillors were told that since introducing enforcement of the latest offence parking attendants had been prioritising areas where the activity was having an impact.
He said: “Midlothian Council took the approach that we would apply the pavement parking ban, as it is known, across the board. It was discussed by the council that they would prioritise areas where there were particular mobility instances with people in wheelchairs, folks using buggies were having to go onto the road.”
He said that while parking on the pavement in all cases was an offence and penalty notices could be issued, attendants had been targeting areas where enforcement was needed because, for example, it was impeding emergency vehicles or council waste vehicles, and had seen fewer offences committed in those areas.
In the first three months of the financial year – April to the end of June – this year 1,429 parking fines were issued across the county.
The third highest offence was parking in a car park without a valid parking ticket on display which saw 164 penalty notices handed out.
A further 131 were issued for parking in a restricted street while 93 were given for ignoring waiting or loading and unloading restrictions in a street.
A further 58 were issued for blocking a dropped kerb at a known crossing point with 62 fines handed out to people who were caught parked after their pay and display time had run out and 39 fines given to people parked in electric charging spaces while not charging a vehicle.
No fines were issued to anyone found parking outside schools in restricted areas over the last year.
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