RCS recommends parking changes

In its formal response to East Sussex County Council (ESCC) Rye Conservation Society (RCS) has made a number of recommendations to help with the introduction of Civil Parking Enforcement (CPE), which is expected to be introduced in Rye in 2020.

While the Society broadly supports the proposals, its main areas of concern were the size and location of the pay-and-display machines. RCS laid out a number of guiding principles that ESCC should adhere to, such as:

• Avoid installations that directly impact listed buildings;
• Minimise visual impact through reducing the number of, and sensitively locating machines and signing;
• Locate machines to avoid excessive damage to pavements, impact on services and hidden drains;
• Locate machines to avoid potential nuisance/maintenance obstruction issues for property owners;
• Avoid additional pavement obstacles and/or locate machines where pavements are wider;
• Avoid long walk distances, in excess of 100m, to the nearest machine.

The Society believes that using these principles would see a reduction in the number of machines that would be needed. The Society also helpfully listed alternative locations for machines that would cause less pavement obstruction.

In addition, RCS recommends that ESCC install smaller pay-and-display machines (pictured above). The more compact machine is substantially smaller than those used in Hastings and Eastbourne but still has multiple payment functions.

The Society hopes that CPE will ‘deter the current parking free-for-all in the centre of Rye which makes like difficult for residents, particularly the elderly, disabled and people with pushchairs and walking aids who are forced into the road by inconsiderate motorists parking on the pavement’.

The Society also raised concerns that, following the introduction of CPE, parking provision will not meet the demand for parking. They pointed out that ‘provision and operation of parking is fragmented and it is challenging for users to navigate’.

In any future review the RCS recommends the local authority devises ‘a comprehensive and co-ordinated plan of action for parking and transport in the local area. This should be in the form of a revised Rye Local Area Transport Strategy, last prepared by ESCC in 2003.

‘In conjunction with Rother DC, Rye Town Council, Icklesham, Rye Foreign and Playden parishes, the Transport Strategy should be updated in line with the Rother Local Plan of 2014 and the Rye Neighbourhood Plan of 2019, to form a comprehensive and co-ordinated plan of action for parking and transport in the local area’. The Society went onto confirm that it ‘would look forward to playing a role in this’.

Image Credits: Kevin McCarthy .