A700 road

The A700 road is a short but important link skirting Edinburgh City Centre between the A8 and A7 roads.

Route

The road begins at the West End junction at the terminus of the A8 and heads south then east comprising the streets of Lothian Road, Earl Grey Street, Brougham Street, Brougham Place, Melville Drive, Summerhall Place and West Preston Street. It ends at a crossroads where it meets the A7 and A701 roads.

The major junction along its route is at Tollcross where it meets Lauriston Place, West Tollcross and the Home Street A702 road. It overlaps for the length of Earl Grey Street with the A702, which diverges to the west on Fountainbridge.

The northern section of the road is a designated a Red Route on which no stopping of vehicles is permitted in order to maintain traffic flow.

History

The Melville Drive section is flanked to the north by The Meadows, a large public park established in the 18th century. At each end of Melville Drive is a pair of stone pillars topped by a lion and a unicorn. The pair at the eastern end were built in 1881, funded by printers the Nelson brothers; the pair at the western end were built around 1886 by Sir James Gowans.

Lothian

Lothian (/ˈloʊ.ði.ən/; Scottish Gaelic: Lodainn) is a region of the Scottish Lowlands, lying between the southern shore of the Firth of Forth and the Lammermuir Hills. The principal settlement is the Scottish capital, Edinburgh, while other significant towns include Livingston, Linlithgow, Queensferry, Dalkeith, Musselburgh, North Berwick, Dunbar, and Haddington.

Historically, the term Lothian referred to a province encompassing most of what is now southeastern Scotland. In the 7th century it came under the control of the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia, the northern part of the later kingdom of Northumbria, but the Angles' grip on Lothian was quickly weakened following the Battle of Nechtansmere in which they were defeated by the Picts. Lothian was annexed to the Kingdom of Scotland around the 10th century.

Subsequent Scottish history saw the region subdivided into three shires—Mid, East, and West Lothian—leading to the popular term 'the Lothians'.

Etymology

The origin of the name is debated. It perhaps comes from the British *Lugudūniānā (Lleuddiniawn in Modern Welsh spelling) meaning 'country of the fort of Lugus', the latter being the pagan god of commerce. Alternatively it may take its name from a watercourse which flows through the region, now known as the Lothian Burn, the name of which comes from the British lutna meaning 'dark or muddy stream'.

Lothian (Scottish Parliament electoral region)

Lothian is one of the eight electoral regions of the Scottish Parliament. Nine of the parliament's 73 first past the post constituencies are sub-divisions of the region and it elects seven of the 56 additional-member Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs). Thus it elects a total of 16 MSPs.

The Lothian region was created as a result of the First Periodic Review of Scottish Parliament Boundaries and largely replaced the Lothians region.

Constituencies and local government areas

As a result of the First Periodic Review of Scottish Parliament Boundaries the boundaries for the region and constituencies were redrawn for the 2011 Scottish Parliament election.

Members of the Scottish Parliament

Constituency MSPs

Regional List MSPs

N.B. This table is for presentation purposes only

Lothians (European Parliament constituency)

Prior to its uniform adoption of proportional representation in 1999, the United Kingdom used first-past-the-post for the European elections in England, Scotland and Wales. The European Parliament constituencies used under that system were smaller than the later regional constituencies and only had one Member of the European Parliament each.

The constituency of Lothians was one of them.

When it was created in Scotland in 1979, it consisted of the Westminster Parliament constituencies of Edinburgh Central, Edinburgh East, Edinburgh Leith, Edinburgh North, Edinburgh Pentlands, Edinburgh South, Edinburgh West, Midlothian, West Lothian, although this may not have been true for the whole of its existence.

Members of the European Parliament

Election results

References

External links