Plans to introduce parking permits in 19 streets ditched

Plans to extend parking restrictions across 19 streets in Wincheap have been shelved because of a lack of support from neighbours.

The council proposed adding the roads to its residents’ permit scheme in a bid to free up spaces often pinched by commuters avoiding city centre parking charges.

Householders in the area had grown increasingly frustrated with the situation, with one exasperated motorist said to have deflated the tyres of a car parked outside his home.

A public consultation was launched, with residents told they would have to fork out either £60 or £83 to buy a permit if the restrictions were introduced.

But despite letters being sent to all homes and the proposals being widely advertised on social media, fewer than one in five peo- ple responded. Of those, just half indicated a desire to have residents’ parking.

The city council’s senior transportation officer, Richard Moore, said: “There is a small area, roughly bounded by Wincheap, Tudor Road, Martyrs Field Road and York Road, together with part of Oxford Road, where a higher proportion of survey respondents were in favour of introducing residents’ parking, but even in this area less than 20% of households responded to the survey.

“Elsewhere, the responses were more evenly balanced between those who did and did not want residents’ parking to be introduced.

“Having discussed the results with the ward councillors we have concluded that it is therefore not possible for us to recommend that the residents’ parking scheme is extended because the response does not give us a mandate to impose the costs of residents’ parking on all of the residents in the area.

“I know that this will disappoint some of the residents who had been asking for residents’ parking but, as we so often find to be the case, the vocal minority do not necessary represent the majority of residents.”

A public consultation was also launched last month about changing parking restrictions in St Augustine’s Road.

Situated off the New Dover Road, the street is popular with motorists keen to take advantage of the four hours free parking offered.

The council proposed reducing the time limit to two hours and charging people £1.50 an hour, but 18 of 24 respondents were against the plans.

“There was no mandate to proceed with the idea,” council spokesman Rob Davies said.

“However, a compromise suggestion has been put forward for the nine spaces closest to New Dover Road to become two-hour pay and display bays. This will be consulted on in the forthcoming annual parking review.”