Helping residents end motorbike nightmare
There are few more atmospheric places to hold a public meeting than in the Hawes Inn, South Queensferry.
Nestled under the iconic pilings of the Forth Bridge, the inn itself has been serving customers since the 18th century. It features in the Robert Louis Stevenson classic, Kidnapped.
Usually, meetings held in that space are only punctuated by the distant rumble of trains crossing the bridge overhead, but ironically our meeting in early June was disturbed repeatedly by the very noise we were there to discuss. The deafening whine of motorbike engines, some potentially stolen, some certainly illegally modified, and many hellbent on using this picturesque town as an all-night racetrack.
The waterfront at South Queensferry has been designated a World Heritage site for the Forth Bridge itself and for the breathtaking vista it offers. It has become a firm fixture on the itineraries of visitors to Edinburgh. But in recent years, this stunning beauty spot has attracted more than just sightseers and holidaymakers. Since the lifting of the last vestiges of lockdown, the people of South Queensferry have had their lives made a misery by antisocial vehicle use which goes on late into the night.
Local hospitality businesses have lost income and been subjected to bad reviews after they’ve refunded guests who’ve been disturbed; local residents are routinely woken in the small hours by car horns and exhausts backfiring and there is a real risk that it’s only a matter of time before someone is killed. Initially the problem was predominantly caused by drivers of high performance and often illegally modified cars. Their racetrack would commence at the Hawes public car park but would take in a circuit that includes but is not limited to the promenade, Queensferry High Street, Ferrymuir, Burnshot Road and the A904.
I hosted the first public meeting about the problem last September. People were queueing out the door. It led to national media attention, a meeting with the First Minister, the establishment of a national ministerial task force on the problem and a significant local policing operation which continues to this day. Following demands made at another public meeting held at Christmas, the council installed speed cushions at the Hawes. This had a limited success in reducing the number of cars using the area antisocially, but then the motorbikes turned up to use the speed cushions as jumps.
I say motorbikes, but as we heard in an excellent input from Tricia at the Biker’s Cove cafe, these guys aren’t bikers. They are inexperienced young men horsing around on “crotch rocket” motorbikes. The Cove biker community are as appalled by their behaviour as local residents, not least as they suspect some of these people will be involved in the epidemic of motorbike theft which is blighting all of Edinburgh right now.
This week I will help the residents of South Queensferry to launch a petition to Edinburgh City Council’s Transport Committee and demand they bring forward measures to end the use of their town as a racetrack for good. This will require serious physical modification along all affected stretches to prevent speeding and even the nightly closure of the Hawes public car park with measures to render it inaccessible during these hours. These are severe and costly measures but not nearly as severe and costly as the misery my constituents have been subjected to.
Alex Cole-Hamilton is Scottish Liberal Democrat leader and MSP for Edinburgh Western