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Residents' action plea over parking nightmare in Fordington (From Dorset Echo)
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Residents' action plea over parking nightmare in Fordington
10:20am Tuesday 9th February 2010
FORDINGTON residents are hoping for an end to their parking nightmare.
They claim drivers are avoiding paying charges by parking in Fordington and clogging up the streets.
It has been happening since new parking charges were introduced in Dorchester town centre last summer.
Dorchester Town Council’s planning and environment committee has now urged Dorset County Council to consider introducing residents’ parking zones in the area in a bid to ease the congestion.
Malcolm Cumber, 49, of South Walks Road, said: “Although I have got off-road parking I still have the need to park in the road at times and it has become very difficult.
“I see people who work in town parking here and walking into town because they have been pushed out by parking charges in the town centre.”
Fellow South Walks Road resident Sue Jenkins said: “I would be in favour of residents’ permits. I find it difficult to park anywhere near my home and it has got worse since they brought in the charges in town.”
Kieran Fitzgerald, 25, of Duke’s Avenue, said: “It’s an absolute nightmare. On a Friday evening cars are double parked right the way up both sides of the road.
“One of my housemates is a fire officer and he says there is no room for a fire engine to get through.”
Another Fordington resident, who did not wish to be named, said: “The parking is horrendous and there has been a considerable difference since the new charges were brought in.”
At the meeting of the town council’s planning and environment committee, Councillor Stella Jones told county council representatives who attended: “Fordington has a severe problem at the moment as people don’t want to pay to park in town.
“At Fordington Green you can hardly get past because of cars parking on both sides of the road.
“It’s very urgent, the parking round there is absolutely appalling – an ambulance wouldn’t be able to get down there, residents and visitors to the flats can’t park.”
Councillor Trevor Jones added: “It’s time all local authorities thought about people living here – without accessible parking their quality of life is just hammered.”
The committee agreed to formally ask the county council to consider introducing residents’ parking areas in Fordington.
Tony Mackle, from the county council’s traffic management team, said it would take around nine months for any residents’ parking zone to come into force. He said: “The first thing we have to do is make sure the people who live there want it. If there is a strong consensus it’s easy.”
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Your Say YourEcho
Paul Anthony Evans, Fordington says...
5:30pm Tue 9 Feb 10
However, FACT:
Dorset county council 'invested' £28.1m in temporary loans to two Icelandic banks - Landsbanki and Heritable.
Source: the Press Association,
http://www.guardian.
co.uk/politics/2008/
oct/10/localgovernme
nt-iceland
If you live in Fordington and you'd like to join me in the fight to make DCC accountable - i.e., get the rogues who squandered our money sacked, rather than imposing a parking tax on us (no wonder there's no cash left to carry out the promised parking improvements!) - then here's my email address:
paul.evans15@virgin.
net
Thank you.
Cars parked in South Walks Road are clogging up the area for residents
Concerned resident Malcolm Cumber
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Paul Anthony Evans, Fordington says...
3:59pm Tue 9 Feb 10
Which Fordington residents?
The three quoted here, certainly - and the proverbial resident who "did not wish to be named".
How did this story originate? From the residents themselves?
Well, I'll tell you how it did - until the Echo can prove otherwise.
The residents' parking scheme for Fordington was abandoned at a Cabinet meeting in October 2006 on the recommendation of the Roads and Rights of Way Committee during their meeting on 18 September that year.
The reason?
Incorrect survey procedure, i.e. residents were not made aware that they had to apply for a voting slip on the second consultation exercise.
Following a meeting in the St.George's Church Hall in that year (at which I as a Fordington resident was present, along with Councillor Jones) the scheme was scrapped.
However, has it surfaced on the agenda of a meeting of the Planning and Environment Committee in the Magistrates Room of the Municipal Buildings on Monday on February 1st 2010 - and, no doubt, was 'leaked' to the Echo by Dorchester Town Council (and it's revenue-obsessed 'masters' Dorset County Council).
There is no evidence in this article that the town council is reacting to concerns of its true masters, the electorate.
Dukes Avenue, South Walks Road (and Icen Way) were specifically mentioned at recent meetings (Google them - this information is available to anyone.)
It wouldn't surprise me if DCC had planned this all along - hey, people, lets introduce city-style parking charges in the centre of this once-pleasant rural, market town. And when the refuseniks park in the suburbs we can drag in some more revenue by letting the traffic cause civil unrest, and drive our residents' parking scheme back in again.
That will bring us in even more revenue, because we've wasted so much investing in Icelandic banks!
If you live in the historic village of Fordington and the council drive this Stalinist measure through then you will live in a world of annual, non-capped parking fees, extra charges in the form of scratch-cards for your visitors, officious, town-centre-style signs telling you where and when you can and cannot put the car that you pay huge taxes for - and you still won't be able to park outside your house.
Why?
Because there are so many areas in Fordington (eg the houses that front onto Salisbury Fields and everywhere that there are double yellow lines) that after 8pm - when the residents' scheme will not be place - you'll still have people who own two or three cars from these areas parking outside your house, just as you do now.
If you want to pay for the status quo then fine - but what we really need is more parking spaces.
Many were taken away when the traffic calming was installed in 2002. The council consulted with engineers several times afterwards (as I said, everything's minuted and Google-able) but have sat on their laurels since, apart from resurrecting a scheme that's all about money and enforcement.
I've been living in Fordington and Dorchester since 1995 - life here was a pleasant change from the Home Counties back then.
But now it's all about restrictions and revenue.
Ask your local council representatives how many of them live here in Fordington.
When you hear their answer you'll know exactly why they neither understand nor care.
I helped elect you, DCC - so I'm ready for a fight...