Council consult Kemp Town residents over parking (From The Argus)

Council consult Kemp Town residents over parking

7:15pm Thursday 2nd February 2012 in News By Faye Morrison

Canning Street congestion. Photograph: Faye Morrison

Fingers are crossed in Kemp Town’s Canning Street after residents who voted in favour of the council’s proposed parking permit scheme wait for the results.

People in the street were issued with questionnaires to be filled out by the end of January as part of a council bid to improve the current parking situation. The scheme would extend Zone H, which is currently in operation in areas surrounding Royal Sussex Hospital, to include Canning Street. The plan would require residents to buy permits priced at £108 per year to park on Canning Street before 8pm, with a discount available for low emission vehicles. It would also limit parking space to one side of the road.

According to the council, the scheme is an attempt to reduce the high number of commuters who currently use the street for free parking.

Canning Street resident Chrissy Lawson said: “Most of the problem we have is because it’s free parking. You get people from the hospital and Brighton College parking during the day. Very few of those cars belong to residents.”

Canning Street is constantly lined on both sides with parked cars. This leaves very little space for passing traffic and encourages drivers to park on the pavements to avoid their cars being damaged by other vehicles. This in turn also reduces pedestrian space.

Canning Street resident Gail Findlay said: “We must not miss this opportunity to sort out the parking problems once and for all, to improve community safety and our surroundings and to make our street a real living street rather than the car and van park it has become.”

The limited room for traffic has also caused concern among those living on the street regarding emergency vehicle access. Mrs Findlay added that in 2009 her daughter had an accident at home which left her needing urgent medical attention. The ambulance struggled to pass through the narrow gap between parked cars and it was only thanks to the fact that her daughter’s partner had first aid training that she avoided serious blood loss.

However, some residents have raised issues regarding how far the scheme would merely displace the current problem into surrounding areas.

Canning Street resident Gareth Humphreys-Weinz said: “I’m not sure where all these cars are going to go. I'm fundamentally opposed because I quite like the idea that we’re giving spaces to people at the hospital. I don’t mind sharing the street with others. It just pushes the problem somewhere else, it doesn’t actually solve it.”

According to residents the consultation follows two similar proposals, suggested in 2004 and 2010, which both failed to extend the resident-only parking schemes to Canning Street. In 2010 an overwhelming majority of 73% of voting occupants were in favour of change.

The council said that all comments received during the consultation will be reported to the Environment, Transport & Sustainability Cabinet Members Meeting scheduled to take place in the new year. It will then be decided if there is sufficient support for the proposals to proceed to the next stage of development.