Edinburgh City Council will be cracking down on dog owners who let their pets foul the pavement with the aid of a truck equipped with state-of-the art video recording equipment. Councilor Norman Work told the Edinburgh Evening News: “Enforcement work will be supported by the use of mobile CCTV to assist with surveillance of particular problem areas” such as Great Junction Street in Leith.

Keepers at the Edinburgh Zoo were forced to shoot dead a monkey on Tuesday 5 January after the animal, infected with rabies and under quarantine, escaped from its enclosure. The zoo was evacuated while a search was mounted for the monkey; the decision to destroy it was taken only when attempts to tranquilise the animal failed.

A massive environmental protection effort was launched last week after storms which wreaked havoc on shipping up and down the British Isles forced a Spanish trawler onto rocks at St. Kilda, the westernmost outpost of the Outer Hebrides. Volunteers searched the wreck and surrounding areas for evidence that rats had escaped the ship; normally protected from such predators by its isolation, St. Kilda has developed into an ideal habitat for burrowing seabirds such as the puffin.

One of Scotland’s most-visited tourist attractions is now off-limits to amateur photographers looking for a couple of holiday snaps. The operators of Rosslyn Chapel have banned the use of cameras in the medieval church, made famous by Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, due to health and safety concerns. “Because the chapel is quite dimly lit and there are cracked and uneven slabs,” said Colin Glynne-Percy, directort of the Rosslyn Chapel Trust, “it can lead to people tripping and stumbling.”

Meanwhile – perhaps disappointed that they couldn’t get the pictures they wanted at Rosslyn – holiday snappers have been flocking to Edinburgh newest unofficial landmark. Norrie Rowan, former Scotland rugby international and owner of the Cowgate’s Rowan Tree pub, was bemused to find increasingly large crowds of tourists gathering outside his establishment to photograph a model of a cow’s rear end, suspended high above the pavement, which expels smoke in an imitation of flatulence on the hour from 11am until 1pm. “The cow is already famous around Edinburgh and I get hundreds of tourists coming by and taking pictures of it,” Mr Rowan told the BBC.

Proposals are being discussed by Edinburgh City Council to raise parking fees from £1.80 to £2 an hour, according to a document leaked to the Edinburgh Evening News. The council report suggests the price hike as a possible solution to falling parking revenues in central Edinburgh, where disruption caused by road works related to the tram development have put off drivers. The document also contains suggestions to raise certain parking fines from £60 to £80, depending on the severity of the offence.

The humble British teacake could cost HM’s Revenue & Customs heavily after a European court ruled that an accounting error had occurred, entitling Marks & Spencer to a £3.5 million repayment from the government. Until 1994, M&S’ marshmallow teacakes had been classified as biscuits, upon which sales tax is levied on export; however, upon their reclassification as cakes – exempt from sales tax – the government only refunded just under £90,000 of the total paid by the company. The case now moves to the House of Lords.

A consortium of Christian radical businessmen has begun investigating the possibility of opening a creationist ‘theme park’ in Britain similar to those already existing in the USA. The AH Trust is considering a number of locations in north-west England, with a likelihood that the £3.5 million attraction will be built in Lancashire. The 5000-capacity park would focus on exhibiting Christian film, television and other media, but would not involve live re-enactments of Christ bearing the cross as seen in Orlando, Florida’s ‘The Holy Land Experience’. “It will be a halfway house for youngsters,” said Peter Jones, one of the group’s trustees. “Today all they do is binge drink. We will be able to offer them an alternative.”