As Northiam residents began to celebrate the Christmas season, the topic of conversation has been less than joyous, as news of an audacious money-grab by Rother District Council began to circulate.
Buried in Appendix A in Rother District Council’s budget plan for 2025 / 6 is the proposal to start charging for car parking in village car parks. Northiam residents were appalled to discover that RDC consider it feasible for people to pay £1.10 through a RingGo app in order to pop into the surgery to pick up a prescription.
RDC was accused of showing as little understanding of rural life as central government by targeting the car park in Northiam, which serves the surgery, dentist, church, school and visitors to the village. Whilst a charge of £1.10 for 4 hours may sound very reasonable to someone living in or visiting a busy town, a village car park is used to visit the surgery, attend a church service or funeral, drop off and collect schoolchildren safely – activities which may happen more than once a day, and last only a few minutes.
As one resident put it: “We have a high proportion of elderly residents, and they are the most likely to need to drive to see the doctor, and the least likely to want to use phone apps – or have the manual dexterity to do so.”
With increasing traffic on the A28 through the village, as evidenced by the weaknesses developing in Newenden bridge, parents of schoolchildren have been urged to use the car park to avoid congestion at school time – and these people would now be expected to pay £11 a week for the privilege.
Traffic already has to idle to get past parked cars. With a possible increase of 40 cars parking along the road, traffic will come to a standstill, with all the associated additional pollution.
Residents from surrounding villages, Beckley, Broad Oak and Brede, have also expressed their dismay, as they have no alternative but to drive to Northiam surgery.
A spokesperson for Rother District Council said: “Rother District Council, like councils across the country, is facing significant pressures as costs and demand increases and funding from Central Government reduces.
“We have some difficult choices to make as we continue to take steps to address the financial shortfall the council is facing.
“To raise more income to help fill our funding gap, we are currently consulting on proposals to add charges to our car parks where there is currently not a charge. However, no decisions will be made before the responses to the consultation have been received and we encourage people to have their say on the proposals by completing the consultation survey - https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/budget2025/.
“A decision on the proposals will be made by full council when it sets the budget in February 2025.”
