Dear Mr Holdaway
I write to you, as Powys County Council officer responsible for Transport Management and Policy, and Car Parks, in the hope you will be able to provide some practical advice. I have copied this email to Cllr. Geraint Hopkins, Portfolio Holder for Highways and Transport and Jeremy Patterson CEO of Powys County Council.
I hope you are aware of the Campaign for a Responsible Approach to Parking (CRAP) we have started in Hay and which has received support from residents, traders and politicians throughout Powys.
We have also started a petition www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/crap asking to bring forward preparatory work on a county wide review of traffic management and residents’ parking schemes to September 2011 so that the full review can be completed before the Council elections and when the current moratorium on spending ends in April 2012.
At the same time, we have started a blog http://crap-powys.blogspot.com as a forum for residents, traders and visitors to Powys to air their views about the contentious issue of parking. This email and your answer, along with other correspondence will appear on that blog.
On Monday evening I attended a meeting of Hay Town Council as parking was to be one of the subjects discussed. Two matters arose regarding your area of responsibility and I am sure your response to them will be of interest to residents
First, Dyfed-Powys’ community police officer revealed that there remains some confusion about the division of different parking infringements and offences between the council and the police. It seems that whilst the police have surrendered most of their responsibilities, some remain and it seems that enquiries to both the police and the council have been given conflicting information. It would be very helpful to know the exact parameters of the different areas of responsibility.
Second, a number of councillors expressed considerable concern about the effect of the council’s new parking enforcement powers during the Hay Festival. In past years police have tolerated residents parking in restricted waiting zones, provided they cause no obstruction or nuisance. Should the council enforce current parking restrictions, considerable trouble and cost will be caused to those who live in streets where time restricted parking applies. If all affected residents park in the town centre car park, it will result in a loss of some fifty places in what is an already overcrowded facility. There are already insufficient unrestricted parking spaces in Hay and the police policy of enforcing additional coned no parking in the area will exacerbate an already difficult situation.
Would it be useful for us to print a number of stickers identifying cars belonging to local residents in the hope that CEOs will exercise some discretion; or if this is not an option, what practical advice can you give that we can pass on to the residents of Hay who are likely to be affected during the period of the festival?
No comments:
Post a Comment