Letters: New parking charge plans for New Forest are milking the cash cow motorist

ONCE again the council is trying to use the motorist as a cash cow (‘Fury as new coast parking plan revealed’ A&T 29th Nov). In spite of amending the original ill-conceived plan, I still wish to object.

The main points I wish to raise are:

• The objection period is insufficient and I feel that the period set for complaints has been deliberately chosen because people will be busy preparing for Christmas and will be too busy to object.

• The new scheme will still drive motorists into roads behind the seafront resulting in complaints and then more parking restrictions from the council.

• The reasons given for introducing this scheme are not credible. ‘To modernise on street parking’ – this is a meaningless phrase which can be translated into ‘make more money’. You want the public to believe that parking meters are modernisation? They have been around for a long time.

• ‘To reduce the scale of subsidies from general highways’ – again this is an insult to the public’s intelligence. If the council introduces these parking restrictions they would need more personnel to monitor adherence than they have at present because of the increased area to be monitored.

• The two-hour free parking before payment is required, is not long enough. It should be three hours to maximise the time spent in the various businesses on the seafront.

The simple basic solution is to install notices to ban overnight parking for motorhomes. This would be at a much reduced cost rather than putting in parking meters. Or leave things as they are and don’t load even more expense on the public when the cost of living is a national problem.

C A Lynott
Address supplied

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I WANT to encourage all readers to consider the traffic road order proposals by Hampshire County Council. The council alleges these restrictions are necessary to address the complaints they have received from those living along Marine Drive, Marine Drive East and Marine Drive West, however after an FOI request, they are unable to provide any statistics detailing how many complaints they received, over what period and from how many of the 249 properties that exist in those roads.

Consequently, they are unable to demonstrate proportionate representation as one would expect if this were such a persistent issue. They haven’t provided details of any traffic study, environmental or safety impact study resulting from traffic inevitably moving to other surrounding roads to avoid the proposed charges. In short, they have not, in my opinion, provided adequate justification for this.

There are of course already alternative solutions available to the council through better use of the NFDC amenity car parks in those locations. However, seeing as though HCC doesn’t receive any parking revenues from those, perhaps a sceptic might suggest this is what’s really driving their agenda for these proposals.

Although not legally required, the council does have a responsibility to manage parking services efficiently and responsibly to avoid unnecessary financial burdens on taxpayers. Curiously, they haven’t demonstrated how this parking scheme would be funded or to what extent it would be subsidised by a council that has openly admitted it doesn’t have enough funding to survive based upon its current funding settlement.

I know people have complained through social media with most saying it’s a done deal, but it’s not. The council must follow due process, so for those who wish to express an opinion they need to do so in writing to The Castle, Winchester SO23 8UD or email public.notices@ hants.gov.uk quoting reference A2039/MJB, by 13th December.

Aaron Lawford
Barton

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I CAN’T believe that Hampshire County Council is again trying to install parking meters on the seafront at Barton following the resounding objection to it earlier this year.

This will mean that our residents will now have to pay if they want a sea view from their car or more likely they will park in the side roads which will make those narrow roads even more congested.

This is a sledgehammer to crack a nut. All that is required is a sign saying ‘no campervans overnight’ which was the residents original suggestion. If this proposal goes through it’s going to cost you a £1 per hour to park (plus card charges) If you think you can go down to the beach and back within an hour you will be hard pushed. You think we were in the middle of a city with these prices!

I think that this is just another money making idea which I suggest all readers should write to HCC to object

Cllr Alan O’Sullivan
Barton