More trouble in the High Street

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For the second time in a week near-disaster struck the High Street, this time on the morning of Thursday, July 25.

Well and truly stuck

A delivery lorry that had pulled over to the side of the street in order to avoid parked cars, hit scaffolding on the corner of Market Road, dislodging some of it and leaving the rest in danger of collapsing.

The stationary lorry, now supporting the scaffolding, was unable to move and was left blocking part of the road at the junction with Market Road.

Police, conspicuous by their absence during the fire at the George a few days earlier, now arrived and both the High Street and Market Road were closed while East Sussex Fire Service were called to make the structure safe.

The increasingly rare sight of the police

This they did without undue delay and the road was opened just over an hour after the incident had occurred.

It has long been accepted that the town’s medieval streets are simply not suitable for much of modern day traffic and this latest event gives rise to the expectation by many of the town’s residents that East Sussex County Council with advice from our town council will give careful consideration to both traffic flow and restrictions on certain vehicles when civil parking enforcement comes to Rye next year.

A barrier opposite the scaffolding now prevents cars parking, which caused the original problem when the lorry had to avoid them

Image Credits: Rye News , Anthony Kimber .

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14 COMMENTS

  1. Inconsiderate parking yet again. Good job it was just a delivery lorry and not a fire engine trying to get to a burning building with people trapped inside.

  2. How about permanently extending the pavement out from the shops ‘half a cars width’ along the lines of the temporary plastic wall that has been erected. This would be a simple and cost effective way of discouraging motorists from parking at the junction. Charging for parking does not resolve a parking problem, because as fast as a motorist leaves a parking bay, another fills the space. The only winners are the parking operatives, who make a substantial profit. The change to from 24 to 23 hour parking (The vehicle must be removed from the car park for 1 hour before purchasing another ticket.) is a classic example designed to frustrate motorists and extract as much income from them as possible. It is the holiday maker that is likely to be the highest fine generator.

    • As I have said many times before, the solution to the cars in Rye is a Park and Ride scheme using Gibbets Marsh as a base. A number of people agree this is a sensible option and using the Rye Town Buses would make it easily viable. A simple notice at the entrances to Rye directing drivers in the correct route is surely not too difficult. When will the Council and Rother consider this idea seriously and when will people in Rye who are fed up with some of the ridiculous parking start to make their voices heard?

    • Not knowing this High Street but from a Driver who has to deliver to such places in lorries sometimes larger than the 1 pictured there is one simple answer Shut the High Street to all except delivery Vehicles to have deliver only times say up to 10.30 is no good because many a time we just can not get to theses places in legal driving times ,because as a delivery driver trust me we are in a NO WIN situation if we park partly on a pavement we get verbally abused by pedestrians who usually go in to said shops to buy what we are trying to deliver or Ticketed because we partly on the pavement if we park on the road we get verbally abused by other road users that seem to think they need 2 feet either side of there car to drive past anything. Just as a side note this is one on many reasons why the Industry can’t get young drivers into the profession

  3. These double yellows are always parked on as it isn’t apparent the reason that they exist – to allow cars to swing into Market Road without encroaching the pavement. With the scaffolding in place, such a turn becomes near impossible for the average car when cars are parked there; and has now been demonstrated, larger vehicles also have trouble continuing straight into the Mint.

    How long until we adopt the model used in some parts of Cornwall, with cars banned from the centre and a service of electric people carriers provided from surrounding car parks – underused Gibbets Marsh immediately coming to mind.

  4. So pleased to see that the barriers are up opposite the scaffolding why it wasn’t part of planning in the first I will never know

  5. You could also have big lorries offloading to smaller (electric?) vehicles for deliveries into the town. Maybe in the early hours at the coach park by the station.

  6. The sarcastic comment concerning the police is not appropriate. Why did they not attend? Was there a presence later in the day? Maybe ESCC Highways and ESF&R did not believe that there was anything constructive the police could do.

    • You may be right, Richard, perhaps they weren’t asked to attend (although one lone PCSO was seen later). My comment was directed not at those who, just as you used to, operate on the front line, but at the management decisions that meant that there was no one to control traffic, no one to advise a fire appliance that a chosen route into town was impossible and no one to provide advice or assistance to nearby residents, should that have been required.

  7. In defence of the person whose car it is, not mine, the car was not parked on double yellow lines. It was actually parked in the parking bay so was legally parked. So saying it was inconsiderate parking or illegally parked is not correct. Also the barriers were not in place at the time. This was waiting to happen. When the scaffolding people were erecting the scaffolding my husband said that someone would hit it and they did. The barriers should have been there from the start of the scaffolding.

  8. Please, please, please, let’s pedestrianise the High street. It will transform it, deliveries in the morning and a resident-only access route of some design. It’s worked for so many other tourists areas with great success and I’ve never heard a good enough argument against it for the High street.

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