Rye Town Council met on Monday October 30 and unanimously voted to support the introduction of civil parking enforcement (CPE).
The meeting kick-starts the long process of getting illegal parking under control, a process that could take up to two years. As explained in last week’s Rye News, the decisions before the Councillors were in answer to three questions posed by Rother District Council (RDC). The questions were:
- 1: Should RDC ask East Sussex County Council (ESCC) to adopt CPE? The council unanimously voted in favour;
- 2: Should CPE be introduced as soon as possible or should RDC investigate a bespoke solution. A majority of councillors voted in favour for introduction as soon as possible.
- 3: Who should pay – local residents, via their council tax, or those who park? It was unanimously agreed that those parking should pay.
Concerns were raised by a number of Councillors that introducing CPE would be “pushing the problem out” of the Citadel to outlying roads such as Military Road and Love Lane because of the lack of car parking spaces in town.
The introduction of CPE was supported by representatives from the Rye Conservation Society and Rye Chamber of Commerce, both of whom raised their members’ concerns on the rise of careless and illegal parking across town.
Councillor Keith Glazier, Rye’s representative on ESCC, clarified that by law the profits generated from CPE must be used to support local services. He explained that the small profit from parking enforcement in Hastings, Eastbourne and Lewes subsidises the local bus services. There was a request that any profit generated in Rye should also be used to subsidise local services.
A number of Councillors criticised Rye’s two RDC representatives for their failure to attend the meeting. It was pointed out that both Councillors Lord Ampthill and Gennette Stevens had been liaising with RDC on traffic issues for some time and therefore the meeting could have benefited from their expertise.
The next step in the introduction of CPE in Rye is for two representatives from the Town Council to attend a Parking Enforcement Stakeholders’ Meeting on November 29 at Rother District Council. Councillors Boyd and Fiddimore agreed to attend and report back to the Council.
Photo: Rye News library
