2022

NT2766 : Wasteland, near Edinburgh Bypass

taken 2 years ago, near to Straiton, Midlothian, Scotland

Wasteland, near Edinburgh Bypass
Wasteland, near Edinburgh Bypass
According to the OS map there should have been a path across the field ahead, just on the other side of the bank. All there was though, was a field full of young crops and this forbidding, and thankfully deserted, 'Service Yard'. It is described as such on the door of an old shipping container blocking a footpath to this bit of wasteland (on the right of the picture) - vehicular access is by way of a track leading from the point at which the original Lang Loan road has been bisected by the bypass.
There were a few other rusty vans and bits and pieces lying about, but sometimes I think it is unwise to take a picture of everything that you see...
The bit of Edinburgh City Bypass (A720) East of Hermiston Gait (ie most of it) is officially designated as a Special Road. I should probably be writing this information up along with a picture of the road, but by the time I get round to taking one I may well have forgotten the information! I found this out when looking into Edinburgh city centre's imminent Low Emission Zone (LEZ). For whatever reason, for what it's worth, LEZs cannot be applied to Special Roads.
They came about when the idea of motorways was first being floated; previously it had been possible to legally exclude certain vehicles (along with horses and pedestrians) from certain roads, but it was apparently a bit of a fiddly procedure. All motorways are Special Roads therefore, but not all Special Roads are motorways. And although they generally have the same restrictions as motorways this is not always the case - a very interesting article on the SABRE (road nerds') website mentions a stretch of an A-road in Belfast on which slow moving vehicles and horses are permitted, but bicycles and pedestrians are not.
Utilities cannot be run under Special Roads, and they are always the responsibility of the national transport authority as opposed to the local authority. Another interesting fact is that due to being 'special' the national speed limit rules do not apply, so unlike other motorway roads (motorways have their own specific laws of course) the diagonal black line through a white circle sign is meaningless. This is why there are 70mph speed limit signs on the bypass and sections of the A1 East of Edinburgh, most of which is also a Special Road. The SABRE article ponders whether this means that, since lorry speeds aren't mentioned anywhere specifically on the bypass, they too can legally drive at 70 - might make for an interesting court case!

Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights Reserved]   © Copyright Ian Dodds and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Geographical Context: Derelict, Disused Primary Subject: Yard
This photo is linked from: Automatic Clusters: · Path [11] · A720 [9] · Edinburgh City Bypass [7] · Lang Loan [3] · Pedestrian Access [3] ·
1:50,000 Modern Day Landranger(TM) Map © Crown Copyright
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1:50,000 Modern Day Landranger(TM) Map © Crown Copyright
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NT2766, 93 images   (more nearby 🔍)
Photographer
Ian Dodds   (more nearby)
Date Taken
Monday, 9 May, 2022   (more nearby)
Submitted
Monday, 9 May, 2022
Subject Location
OSGB36: geotagged! NT 2779 6686 [10m precision]
WGS84: 55:53.3664N 3:9.3650W
Camera Location
OSGB36: geotagged! NT 2779 6686
View Direction
Southwest (about 225 degrees)
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Image Type (about): geograph 
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