What part of speech is it? [closed]

DRIVING in the town centre is banned during the day. I think they should ban DRIVING in the town centre during the day

What part of speech is DRIVING in these sentences? Is it a noun?


Solution 1:

DRIVING in the town centre is banned during the day.

I think they should ban DRIVING in the town centre during the day.

I'd say that "driving" is ambiguous between a verb and a noun, though verb preferred.

Noun interpretation can be forced by adjectival premodification, as in unnecessary/non-essential driving.