Council’s plan to tackle antisocial parking
THE ongoing problem of people who park their cars on grass verges was one of the most discussed topics at the State of the Borough debate – for the second year running.
Crawley Borough Council leader Cllr Bob Lanzer told those present at the Civic Hall meeting on Tuesday (January 4) that the council had a two to three-year action plan in place looking into the options of proving additional parking, preventing access to grass verges and enforcement.
Cllr Lanzer pointed out that the increased number of cars per household had caused a problem for the whole town and had led to motorists using the grass verges as there was not enough car parking space.
He joked: “Designers in 1950 assumed by now only one in 10 households would have a car – they were only slightly out!”
Cllr Lanzer added that the council was looking at using redundant garage blocks, especially older ones which are too small to accommodate modern cars, to create more car parking spaces.
The plan also includes the possibility of installing street furniture such as bollards, fencing or trees to prevent access to the verges. The council would incur costs from these ideas and it would mean that the ‘ride on’ mowers would be unable to cut all of the grass.
Cllr Lanzer also mentioned the use of traffic regulation orders (TROs) to determine where people are allowed to park. Crawley Borough Council does not have the power to do this but would be able to lobby West Sussex County Council to put the TROs in place.
He noted some of the problems of having these by-laws.
He said: “We cannot apply by-laws to those roads that already have traffic enforcement. We have found if someone is breaking a by-law you have to know who they are.”
Cllr Lanzer added that tracking down drivers who were already breaching parking regulations - particularly those using company vehicles - was not possible because agents such as the DVLA would not pass on identification details when approached with a registration number.
After the meeting he said: “Some of the damage to grass verges is not parking, it’s the manoeuvres. Sometimes it’s the people driving over the verges, so we are looking into what we can do, including widening the roads.”
He added that even without the by-law it was illegal to park heavy duty vehicles on a verge.
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Sunday 27 May 2012
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