Highland Council to remove No Overnight Parking signs

Highland Council says that it will start removing the 'no overnight parking' signs from roadside lay bys that it is responsibile for following a committee decision yesterday (Thursday 20 September). Transport Scotland has already committed to removing approximately 50 notices from trunk roads.

There has been some general discussion about the legality of the signs in the last few years and the latest move by Highland Council comes after lobbying by Andy Strangeway. Mr Strangeway, from East Yorkshire, is a regular visitor to the Scottish Highlands, in 2007 he completed his aim to sleep on all of Scotland’s 162 islands defined as larger than 40 hectares. He says that the signs should be removed as it is dangerous not to allow people to pull over and rest while they are travelling.

Highland Council says the signs were put up to to discourage overnight parking of caravans and motorhomes in rural areas where there are no toilet facilities and also to encourage visitors to contribute to the local economy by using campsites. The Council says that the signs are advisory and it had never made any efforts to enforce the message. The Transport, Environmental and Community Services Committee voted twelve to eight in favour of removing the notices.