Tiny village to get street lights after parked van hit twice

Traffic calming measures for a tiny rural community have been given the go-ahead after the same parked van was hit twice in separate nighttime accidents.

Midlothian Council’s administration cabinet this week agreed to go ahead with plans to introduce traffic islands and street lighting in Newlandrig, which has just 17 houses.

The move comes after the local authority received a petition from almost all its residents demanding action to slow down speeding traffic, which ignored the 20 miles per hour restriction as it passed through.

The small community near Vogrie Country Park wanted speed bumps installed.

At a cabinet meeting last November, however, councillors raised concerns about the action, claiming the county was in danger of being crowned the “speed bump capital of Scotland”.

Council officers were asked to draw up options for changes which could be made to safeguard the community, which had reported three serious accidents in 10 years.

A meeting of the cabinet this week heard that the accident rate had risen, with two crashes on the road involving the same vehicle.

They were told both incidents, which happened in February and again last Monday, were put down to driver error by the police rather than road conditions.

Councillors were given three option – to do nothing,; install village entry build outs coupled with street lighting; install village entry build outs coupled with street lighting plus installation of speed bumps.

Members agreed to move forward with options two and three after being told any move to introduce speed bumps would require a further public consultation, which could take four weeks.

It was agreed that work on the middle option, including traffic islands and lighting, could begin with the additional option of speed bumps being introduced once the consultation results came back.