VOTE: Bognor's Lyon Street car park could be closed

Arun District Council's consultants have suggested selling the Lyon Street site of 74 spaces as part of a town-wide parking strategy.

But the proposal was condemned at Tuesday's meeting of Bognor Regis Civic Society along with the entire strategy.

Hugh Coster, the society's deputy chairman, said: "Arun should not even be thinking of selling the car park. It is a widely used car park.

"This shows how dangerous this strategy is. The council can pick out whatever they want from it."

Civic society chairman Laurie Barnes, a Lyon Street resident, said: "There would be a number of residents who would suffer because of that if that car park closes. Quite a few people use that car park at night."

County, district and town councillor Paul Wells, a ward member for the area, told the meeting: "I am absolutely livid they are thinking of taking that car park out of the equation.

"Cars which are parked there in the evenings would be forced out to cause more parking problems locally by increasing parking on the street."

But he did welcome one aspect of the proposed strategy. This was the suggested launch of pay on foot in the Fitzleet multi-storey car park as well as new off-street car parks.

The method sees motorists pay when they leave a site rather than be charged for a fixed amount of time when they arrive.

"That would be an extremely positive step forward," said Cllr Wells. "There are a number of people clock watching when they come into my store because they have only got five minutes left on their ticket.

"That stops them spending more time in the town because they are worried about getting a 40 fine."

The society used the comments from its some 40 members at the meeting, its first at the Regis Centre after being at the Royal Norfolk Hotel most months since its launch in October 1998, as its formal response to the questionnaire.

But town councillor Greg Burt said the proposed strategy was a nonsense. "This survey is out of context. This is so premature it's a complete waste of time. To look at this matter in isolation is just ridiculous," he said.

District and town councillor Jim Brooks warned the questions on the survey were invalid. "This is not a survey at all. Arun just want people to tick a few boxes. It's awful. We should insist it's statistically valid. Arun need 1,500-2,000 responses to get a valid sample," he said.

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