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Parking

Parking: The Debate

Councillor Martin Stears told the group that he thought we should petition the council for the whole Triangle option because it would still be possible to introduce parking schemes on a road by road basis in those roads strongly in favour. This was the first time that anyone from the council had told us this would be possible so there was some doubt that this was true particularly since a proposed scheme around Bunyan Road had not included this option. Some residents wanted assurances from the Council that the road by road option was real but as already mentioned the lack of any coherent council policy on parking probably means no such assurance can be obtained.There was some support for Martin's suggestion particularly from residents of Dacre Road, however, Walsworth Rd. residents were against it unless they could be given permits too. It was then suggested that Radcliffe and Dacre Roads should be considered as a single unit but again residents from other roads were against it unless they could also be included. The problem is that where Permit Parking schemes are introduced the parking problems just get exported to surrounding roads and few residents wanted to risk the possible situation of living in the only road free of controlled parking.

One resident suggested that extra parking places could be found in the area for example the redundant double yellow lines in Kings Road could be removed and more parking places could be created in the space between Radcliffe and Dacre Roads. It was also felt that if the private parking space behind the Albert and other existing off- road parking places were used more often the parking problem would not be so severe. This thought was used to try and support the Dacre Road only option but was shouted down as being unrealistic because everyone just wanted to park outside their own front door and since the arson attack on cars parked in-between Radcliffe and Dacre many thought this to be an entirely justifiable need. Another resident suggested that the real problem was that we just had too many cars and with 24% of Triangle households having no car at all the problem was set to become even worse. No one disagreed with this but no one volunteered to give their car up either!!

The debate became more intense when one resident from Dacre road reminded the group that the distance from the end of the railway car park to the Station was greater than that from Dacre road to the Station so it was obvious that commuters given the choice of paying hundreds of pounds in parking fees every year or parking for free in Dacre road would choose Dacre every time. For this reason alone Dacre road should be allowed to have a Parking Scheme on its own if the rest of the Triangle voted against. The logic of this argument was plain for all to see but only a few people agreed. For most residents, fear of the knock on effects of a Dacre only scheme only strengthened support for a Triangle wide scheme - even some residents opposed to a permit parking scheme were won over. It was felt that the Dacre Road residents were spearheading the move towards permit parking and the rest of the Triangle would follow their lead.

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