Residents' fears over '˜appalling' number of parked cars

Members of Bolnore Farm Lane Residents Association say the problem has been going on for months.

They say contractors have been working on the building of a new complex for the elderly in the area for nearly a year and that there are around 50 contractors’ vehicles at a time parked in the lane.

Residents spokesman Paul Andrews said: “It’s pretty appalling.” He said residents’ access to and from their homes onto the A272 was difficult and that he feared emergency vehicles could not gain access because the road was reduced to a single carriageway.

He said: “The considerable number of contractors’ cars parked in the lane make it difficult and dangerous to exit from Bolnore Farm Lane onto the A272, and equally, on entering from the A272 we meet contractors’ vehicles exiting the site during the school runs early morning/late afternoon.”

“There is a turning area at the end of the lane which is totally consumed by contractors’ vehicles meaning, as is often the case, people making a wrong turn into the cul-de-sac thinking it was the A273 towards Burgess Hill cannot turn around without some difficulty.”

He said on one day last week he counted 43 vehicles parked in Bolnore Farm Lane. “We have a concern about emergency vehicles having access to our properties when faced with so much traffic in what has been reduced to a single lane road.”

A spokesman for West Sussex County Council, which is responsible for roadways, said: “This is a tricky location.

“Basically one half of Bolnore Farm Lane is public highway (under our jurisdiction). The other half is private (under the responsibility of the landowner).

“We are getting the lines refreshed on the public section of highway to make it clearer to enforce parking restrictions.

“We cannot enforce on the private landowner’s section of this lane.”