‘No need’ for Chichester’s parking plan

From the consultation of March 2019 none of the 11 key public concerns have been addressed, so why was the consultation held?

Plans for more controlled parking zones in Chichester - have your say

The story gets worse with vast areas such as schools and nurseries designated as No Waiting (NW) areas, forbidden to both Permit Holders (PH) and public alike, forcing parents/guardians to have to make the decision to compromise the safety of children or break the law.

This plan is designed with no published strategy and not only is devastating to the locals of Chichester but is designed to force out any Chichester business employees and visitors to the city from ever parking on the street. This will result with the already near full car parks (at a high 78 per cent occupancy) being filled up at the start of the day by those business employees that can afford to pay for parking, resulting in employees who can’t afford the high parking fees and customers of the city’s businesses having nowhere to park.

These concerns were discussed with the council’s parking manager at the consultation session who agreed that this is the likely outcome, with the statement “we’ll tackle it when it happens”. So the (county)council is knowingly going ahead with no solution to the future. What happened to park and ride?

What about the city’s future prosperity and wellbeing? This is likely to deteriorate with the loss of employees being able to work in the city and businesses will continue their declines.

Looking at specific examples of some key problems which are repeated and prevalent throughout many areas of the city, in this plan:

Arun Park area – the whole area is dominated with blue ‘No Waiting’ (NW) areas with a splattering of ‘Permit Holder’ (PH) areas which seem to be limited to lay-bys and closes. In the vast NW areas all cars are precluded, including Permit Holders, from parking during the NP designated times.

Consider the first 20 houses in Windsor Road, there are two lay-bys catering for four cars, this is totally incompatable with the average cars per house requiring parking, yet the whole road is a ‘No Waiting’ area.

Walking my grandchildren to/from school and visiting my family, Chichester residents, for several years I have never had problems obtaining a parking slot.

Now the home owners and their visitors have a major issue, apart from costs associated with permit parking, including issues from visiting trades and service people, carers and health workers? Not addressed by the plans, yet highlighted in the Consultancy Executive summary as a key concern.

Kingsham area – the area includes Welcome House nursery, Kingsham primary school and The Free School ‘access’. This area has very limited Permit Holder slots (9am-5pm) and no areas where non Permit Holders can park. How do the numerous parents/guardians drop off and pick-up their children with safety? They have to park briefly and break the law.

The real problem remains the availability of affordable parking areas for those working in and visiting the city, along with the necessity for people to park outside their own homes, where current parking is expensive and operating at around capacity.

As stated in the Consultancy Executive summary’s first key concerns: “There are not parking issues in a particular street or zone – so there is no need for the scheme”.