Hotelier's vow to clamp down on illegal parking

Chris George, director of the Hope Anchor in Rye says the offenders park without permits, preventing hotel guests from parking nearby.

Mr George said: “We issue parking permits to our staying guests so that they may park either directly outside the hotel or adjacent on Watchbell Street. Since the retirement of our local traffic warden, slowly but surely cars without permits are parking here on a daily basis, with some leaving their cars for days!

“It is to the point now that we cannot park the majority of our guests any more, which in turn causes angry and disappointed reactions and on occasions hostile responses which myself and my staff have to deal with on a daily basis.”

Mr George claims he has been passed from pillar to post by the authorities while trying to find someone to help.

Now he plans to take matters into his own hands and report all offenders to Sussex Police every day from March 1.

He said: “I will report at least three to five cars a day and I will continue to do so, increasing the crime rate for the area quite substantially to around 100 separate crimes being reported a month!

“This is now suffocating our business and it has slowly been doing so for the last 18 months, with no regard, care or concern from any of the local authorities! I find it totally wrong and unfair that we as a business have to purchase our parking permits, just to be unable to use them because of cars parked illegally (for more than one hour) with no consequences or the ability to be able to resolve it in any way!”

An East Sussex County Council spokesman, said: “Parking enforcement across Rother is currently the responsibility of the police. Decriminalised parking and civil parking enforcement, which would have to be implemented across the entire district, requires an application to the Department for Transport and would be the responsibility of the highway authority, in this case East Sussex County Council. The county council is aware of the mixed feelings about parking enforcement locally and is happy to continue the dialogue with Rother District Council, residents and traders.”

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