Motorists snub pay car park

Rother District Council has imposed a charge of 1 for up to two hours parking, or 3 for over two hours.

Now the car park - which used to be full - is deserted, and cars are parking along Wainwright Road, as well as Terminus Road, causing problems in that part of the industrial estate.

Jackie Hilton has a snack van, which she parks near the 9th Group Bexhill Scout hut, as she has for eight years.

"It's been three weeks now since the car park became meterised.

"It normally would be completely jam-packed, but now it's empty and you will just see one vehicle parked in there.

"You used to get a lot of the police parking in there - but people don't want to pay 3 a day.

"That's 40 a month ... and 500 a year, which is actually my house insurance.

"If you have a couple both working at the station, doing different shifts and each needing to use a car, then that's a lot out of their income.

"This is going to cause major problems.

"There is a real problem for lorry drivers who are complaining because they can't turn around because of cars parked along the road.

"When the frozen lorry drivers turn up they have a queuing system where they wait to offload frozen products. But now they can't do that because the cars are parked there. All this is affecting the lorries and cars in Wainwright Road.

"The lorry drivers are going to end up hitting the cars - it won't be deliberate, just inevitable that it's going to happen."

She feels the town centre will be affected by imposing of charges in Wainwright Road, and says Bexhill has lost enough parking already.

"Obviously its going to affect my business eventually.

"My customers are coming down here and they can't park properly - they see my van with 20 cars around it and think I'm too busy."

r Tell us what you think about the parking situation.

Observer Comment p6.