Rother District Council (RDC) has asked its town and parish councillors to report on the main parking concerns in their areas by Friday of this week, March 31 - and a local resident has compiled his own list of the top ten black spots.
Rye's Town Hall had no contact with our local RDC councillors last week or early this week about the report they were supposed to be preparing though elsewhere in Rother at least one councillor had turned up at the local parish council with a map to do the job properly.
Details on parking concerns have been requested because the RDC is working with East Sussex County Council (ESCC) on the Civil Enforcement of Parking, or the introduction of parking meters or permits and traffic wardens as parking is no longer a police responsibility - which has happened already in most other parts of the country.
Rye resident Nick Taylor has had parking problems literally on his doorstep in Lion Street as motorists try to squeeze past delivery vehicles at the side of the George hotel - notwithstanding that a special delivery bay has been provided in front of the hotel. Closed circuit TV is being explored as a solution to this, but parking regulation breaches still have to be enforced by either the police (barely seen in Rye) or new civilian traffic wardens. But these will have to be paid for by parking revenue from meters so Nick is telling Rother's councillors what the problems are.
Nick's top ten black spots include -
- The Cinque Ports Street mini-roundabout
- The Landgate
- Hilders Cliff
- Into East Street
- From East Street into Market Street
- Lion Street
- Into the High Street from Lion Street
- Outside the George hotel
- Turning into Market Road, and
- along Market Road
However no doubt there are others which can be identified by those who live in other parts of the town and are therefore more aware of them on a day to day basis - and these may include areas around Strand Quay; in Military Road, New Road and Ferry Road around the station area, and along South Undercliff.
A common issue is parking illegally on double yellow lines which may restrict vision or movement, particularly for larger vehicles like rubbish trucks or delivery vans, or indeed emergency vehicles.
A particular problem point can be the corner where Tower Street turns into the Landgate.
"Buses become stuck here regularly" says Nick in a letter to Rother councillors Lord Ampthill and Genette Stevens "because they are unable to make the sharp turn on the corner by The Landgate. This then completely closes off the High Street and town centre to all other traffic including emergency vehicles".
The loading bay outside the George initially had some effect but, he says, "with the withdrawal of all parking enforcement by Sussex police soon after its creation the bay has just become another area of unregulated twenty-four hour parking".
And the turning from the High Street into Market Road has even more problems. "Illegal parking makes it difficult for larger vehicles to have enough space to swing round to make the narrow turn. As a result these vehicles cut right across the pavement . . . the danger to pedestrians . . . cannot be exaggerated".
However the introduction of parking meters and traffic wardens may affect the revenue the district council Rother gets from its car parks, so these are early days and traffic wardens may be still a long way off.
Photo: Rye News Library
