Community, or car park?

Should parking on our streets be for residents and visitors, or an unregulated car-park for commuters?

See our readers’ comments. And add your own.

See also: Mill Road – what route for the future?

Many of the streets of Coleridge ward, around Rustat Road and around Romsey’s Greville Road and Argyle Street, have recently joined those of South Petersfield in residents’ parking schemes.

Those streets have seen some advantages:

  • Commuters and occasional rail users who were unwilling to pay to park at the railway station, nor to take a bus or taxi, no longer clog the streets with their cars, for the whole day.
  • Similarly drivers who want to park for free and walk to the city centre can no longer use these local streets.
  • More road-space is available to local drivers and to cyclists.
  • There are fewer vehicle movements on these streets.

There are, however, a few problems.

  • Residents must now pay an annual fee to park in their street.
  • Permits are required for visitors.
  • As soon as one street has a residents’ parking scheme, the neighbouring street encounters the same problem.

This blog-post was triggered by an email to email our contact address.

Let’s have your views. There’s no character limit, unlike Twitter. So expound and expand, below. (Comments are pre-moderated.)

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3 Comments (Don't forget to scroll down to subscribe to website updates.)
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R
R
Guest
20 February 2019 20:54

It’s likely that there’s going to be huge pressure on Romsey parking over the next few months, with the combination of (i) residents’ parking being introduced in neighbouring zones, pushing overflow/commuters outwards, (ii) the new mosque opening (because there really won’t be enough space in the car park – and anyone driving will quite sensibly grab any available space if they see one on the way), (iii) the introduction of parking monitoring in Brookfields’ Hospital car park, if this goes ahead; and (iv) various student accommodation buildings and new build flats which don’t have any designated parking, but inevitably will have residents with cars who need to park on neighbouring streets.

It’s a real shame Romsey residents won’t get an opportunity to vote for or against a residents’ parking consultation, as apparently the consultation is not progressing. Hopefully if/when the situation gets worse this will be revisited.

L
L
Guest
20 February 2019 15:55

Hi there

The areas around Romsey which used to be such a nice community are being used as cheap car parking for those avoiding the expensive city centre parking.

I live in Romsey and we have a small car, purely for taking my baby daughter to places. When we moved in we were aware of the issue of parking in the area but are shocked by how bad it is. As an example currently I’m unable to walk having given birth a few months ago. Today whilst driving back my husband popped out to ask a lady not to park in front of our house so I wouldn’t need to walk too far – I understand this isn’t our right but it was a favour due to an extreme illness. The woman screamed, swore and said she didn’t want to pay for parking and was late for work in town, I understand the need for these people to park but it seems like the area is just being used as overflow as parking in town becomes more expensive.

Multiple times I’ve seen something similar, and whilst these houses don’t have drives, it should surely be acceptable to park within a 15 minute radius for a small charge. I also cycle and find that it’s impossible to cycle due to so much traffic – and the pram is impossible to push due to people parking on the pavement. I am not pro car by any means – if I didn’t need it I would happily get rid of it! The only time we use it is for the hospital and I think most people round here prefer to cycle or walk so it seems a shame that parking is an issue.

This is much worse during the weekend and in short it’s visitors from out of town using the area as a free car park.

Over Christmas when only residents were here it was so peaceful.

I’m hopeful the change in parking status will calm things if people vote in favour.

Dave4
Dave4
Guest
13 February 2019 20:13

It would be good to hear what people think.
Dave4labour

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