Residents’ Parking Scheme - a note from KCG Committee
THE PROPOSED RESIDENTS’ PARKING SCHEME (RPZ)
The City has circulated 50,000 copies of the RTZ consultation paper and questionnaire. If you haven’t received your copy, download it from http://tinyurl.com/6h5ydx or get a copy from the Planning Department at Brunel House.
KCG’s Committee discussed the RPZ at their committee meeting on the 22nd July and believe that they must say what they think about the proposals.
Years ago the City proposed to extend the Central Controlled Parking to include Kingsdown. Kingsdown’s residents then held divided opinions. The City said that the majority of residents voted to accept the scheme, which did not proceed. We don’t need to tell you how since then, residents’ parking problems have grown worse; year on year. Now, there are many more houses in multiple-occupation, more students’ cars and saturation commuter parking.
Cars park on pavements and damage them. Cars park on corners and make them impassable. Parked cars block streets. Some weeks the refuse is not collected because parked cars make a street impassable. Last year, a Fire Service tender couldn’t drive down Somerset Street to fight a house fire.
If the RPZ proceeds, KCG will do all that it can to ensure that the implementation is done sensitively without damage to the setting of the conservation area by a plethora of signs and yellow lines.
DOING NOTHING ISN’T ANY LONGER AN OPTION.
OPINIONS MAY STILL BE DIVIDED, BUT OPPONENTS OF THE PLAN TO GIVE KINGSDOWN RESIDENTS PARKING PRIORITY OWE IT TO EVERYONE TO PUT FORWARD AN ALTERNATIVE PROPOSAL.
IN 2009 THE PARKING CHAOS WILL BE EVEN WORSE THAN TODAY.
July 26th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
I’m not going to hold an opinon on a CPZ in kingsdown; I think over in Cotham we are more against it. Because its a lot of money and a great loss of freedom for no clear benefit -at least to anyone who has offstreet parking or doesnt want to park their car during working hours.
However, and if you follow the link to the Bristol Traffic site above you can see- is that a lot of the parking on pavements, double yellow lines and keep clear zones in kingsdown is actually done by locals. You can see this by photographing the cars and then coming back a week later, or at weekends. The cars are still there. These are not commuters, they are yourselves.
What would make a difference today would be something resembling enforcement of parking rules. If commuters and residents knew there was a 50% chance of being ticketed for parking illegally on any day they did it, they wouldn’t. This could actually increase pressure from residents for a CPZ; suddenly all the ‘resident only’ parking slots would be gone.