Residents condemn parking restrictions

 

Residents of King Arthur’s Way and Roman Way have reacted angrily to the newly introduced double yellow lines on several local roads. Many have contacted us complaining of no consultation and no notice being given on the plans. The plans were approved last year by Alamein’s conservative councillors. Full details of the plans and the   council officer’s report on local consultation and the decision making can be seen on the Test Valley website here

We were particularly concerned by local comments that the decision to introduce yellow lines on King Arthur’s Way was made by or for local Liberal Democrats. The following letter of clarification has been sent to King Arthur’s Way residents. We will also be contacting Roman Way residents.

Dear residents

 Many of you have contacted us in the last twenty four hours regarding the recently introduced double yellow lines on King Arthur’s Way. These are outside Knights Enham School, in Launcelot Close, and at the junction of King Arthur’s Way and Stuart Court.

 There has been some suggestion that these were introduced at the prompting of or by local Liberal Democrats. This is not true. The restrictions were introduced by Test Valley Borough Council following “consultations” carried out in June of last year on a range of parking restrictions for the whole of Alamein ward. Two public meetings were held and 250 letters sent out. Full details can be seen in the attached council report.

Given that there are about 900 homes in the King Arthur’s Way area it is likely most of you didn’t get a letter. This is confirmed by the fact that only two comments were received on the plans for King Arthur’s Way.

The decision to introduce the parking restrictions was made in July 2014 by your conservative borough councillors Phil North and Janet Whiteley. The third conservative councillor Alex Brook didn’t attend the meeting but later signed off on his colleagues’ decisions. All of this is clearly recorded in the attached report.

 Local Liberal Democrats had no input in the decision making and made no comment on it until November when we lobbied TVBC to take action on road safety outside Roman Way School. We campaigned then and still want to see a controlled crossing outside the school. We were advised of the decision to introduce yellow lines outside the school and that these would be introduced in February. We supported these as a first step to improving road safety at Roman Way School. We did not endorse any of the other parking restrictions.

 The problem here is that your local councillors have signed off on a package of parking restrictions without bothering to adequately consult with you, or inform you on the plans or decisions. Many of you will have recently received an eight page colour newsletter from them. There is no mention of the yellow lines they have approved. This is a disgraceful failure on their part for which they owe everyone an apology.

 We hope to speak to as many of you as possible about the way these new yellow lines were introduced and will raise your concerns with the council. If you have any comments in the meantime please contact us.

4 thoughts on “Residents condemn parking restrictions

  1. GS says:

    In Tiberius Road this has resulted in the cars and work vans previously parked on Roman Way parking further into Tiberius Road. It now means that all the residents who actually live in Tiberius Road no longer have any parking space for any of their visitors.

    In addition, it has added to the disturbance for the residents of Tiberius by the vehicles owners constantly coming and leaving and all hours of the day and night – shutting of door/s, boot lids etc. Of course it doesn’t affect the vehicles owners lives as they live further away – probably somewhere less noisy.

    Quite frankly and excuse my language, it’s a bloody mess. Unsurprisingly, this is an example of yet another ill-conceived and badly implemented plan.

    • GS says:

      Addition comment. The new disabled parking bay is all fair and well, but it has been place directly opposite a driveway making access to that driveway near impossible. I feel it could have been just a couple of yards further down the road.

  2. JW says:

    I live in Hadrian Road and double yellows are now round the corner from Roman Way extending right outside our house. I spoke to Mr Steve Raw from TVBC who told me that consultations with the public were completed in line with HCC guidelines – discussion and plans at a meeting in June at Smannell Road church, notices on lamp posts and in the Andover Advertiser. We missed the June residents meeting due to being on holiday but the agenda we received beforehand made no mention of parking restrictions, I believe it mentioned traffic calming which is why I wanted to attend. However we have received nothing to say that these parking restrictions were agreed at that meeting. I didn’t see the notices on lamp posts nor in the paper.

    As we have no driveway, I asked Mr Raw how we could unload our car after the weekly shop or wash and hoover our car. He said we would be given 10 minutes grace to unload the car and added that there is no monitoring on a Sunday! Luckily we do have a garage to park in.

    On a positive note it does mean that neighbours are no longer able to park outside our house.

    If the double yellows were put in as a traffic calming measure it will fail because cars are able to drive even faster down Roman Way than before due to less parked cars!

  3. KAW Resident says:

    We are residents of Launcelot Close and we were most displeased to wake one morning to find our car that was legally parked last night was now illegally parked. We need more parking here NOT less. All this has done is made residents into criminals. Should be grateful our car didn’t end up having unwanted ‘sporty’ racing stripes.

    Len Gates replies – I have been told the lines in Launcelot were added to allow the dustbin lorry to get in. Double yellow lines and no parking at any time for an event which happens just one day a week!

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