LETTER: Serious problem in villages too

In our major survey for the Neighbourhood Plan with a response rate of over 73 per cent for those in the heart of the village, parking and its lack of enforcement was a major write in comment. So while towns such as Bexhill Battle and Rye suffer, it is also villages such as those I know well, like Robertsbridge, Burwash and Ticehurst, who have serious problems.

The parking problem in the villages is a combination of factors such as motorists taking blatant advantage of their knowledge that the police will not enforce parking regulations, even if the police see such happening when passing through, that East Sussex County Council have failed to maintain double yellow lines at all and in Robertsbridge in particular, commuters who park on the street all day to avoid paying high car parking charges in the station car park.

Add to that high traffic flows and short term parking demand at time of school arrival and departure and villagers feel rightly upset when they see motorists disobeying the law, double parking in the street outside shops, parking on pavements, on road junctions when going into shops.

Most thinking people recognise that civil parking enforcement or CPE is the way forward – the fact that Rother and Wealden are the only councils in the south of England NOT to have introduced CPE speaks volumes. Plus the statement that Rother councillors need a ‘business’ case before they will consider CPE: the ‘business’ case to me is obvious, they should be considering the business of the safety and health of everyone and the environment. If CPE were introduced then perhaps people would not see the need to get into their cars to go five hundred metres either to school with their children or to the shops. Everyone would benefit.

Stephen Hardy

George Close

Robertsbridge

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