Arundel’s parking bay ‘fiasco’ revealed

Philip Gadsby, of Queen Street, has pointed out the town’s “farcical flaws” in many of its hour-long parking spaces, which he claims are completely invalid.

He said some spaces in Queen Street, High Street and Tarrant Street have been marked incorrectly by West Sussex County Council, meaning that there is nothing to stop people leaving their cars in the road longer than the allotted one-hour period.

Outrageous

Mr Gadsby, who has lived in the town for about three years, said: “The parking situation in Arundel is utterly farcical.

“It is totally outrageous and a complete waste of time and taxpayers’ money.

“We have parking enforcement officers walking around Arundel who, 70 per cent of the time, don’t have the power to do anything – and the joke is they know it!”

By law, parking spaces are supposed to have signs within 15m of the start and end of the bays and then more signs, if needed, spaced out equally at further 30m intervals.

However, Mr Gadsby claimed that many of the town’s allotted spaces simply don’t abide by this, with some having barely any signs at all.

He added that one parking zone, in Mill Lane, should not even exist, according to West Sussex County Council’s map of Arundel.

He said: “If you’re going to play the game, play it properly or not at all. But don’t waste more taxpayers’ money with the ridiculous arrangement we currently have.”

Corrections to be made

A spokesman for the county council said it had carried out work to correct the signing and lining defects and that more was being done to correct other areas.

A spokeswoman for Arun District Council said that the authority only acted as enforcers for the county council and people were entitled to appeal against any parking ticket received in the district if they feel it was unjust.

Anyone who would like to appeal can find more information on Arun’s website, www.arun.gov.uk