DEAR EDITOR -- On October 13 Bromsgrove district and Worcestershire county councils will put into effect prohibition and restriction of waiting for vehicles orders in and around Aston Fields for reasons of road safety.
The car park recently developed at the station is totally inadequate to handle the volume of traffic brought to the town over the past ten years by the influx of commuters caused by the housing explosion.
Promises of further car park facilities, I am told, are being negotiated, but how long might that take if it were ever to become reality?
Furthermore, with charges being made, it is clear that the majority of commuters will choose to take up any available free spaces in the vicinity outside the prohibition zones.
The councils have taken no account whatsoever of the needs of local businesses in terms of provision for their staff who will be forced to park their cars a long way from the centre. Parking in such places beyond the restrictive areas that can be considered as within reasonable walking distance will, of course, be taken up by commuters long before local business staff are due to arrive.
The councils' attitude to parking permits is that whilst it is facilitated in other parts of the county, in this instance they refuse point blank. Their argument is that this would not keep New Road free, whilst they have made provision for temporary parking on one side of New Road.
A strange deduction. Had they prohibited parking on one side of New Road in the mornings and the other side in the afternoons this would have solved the problem in the road and at the same time afforded parking facilities for local businesses and residents alike. It is the parking in both sides of the road that causes the problems. The road is quite wide enough to accommodate cars on just one side they accept by providing for temporary parking.
As it is, those presently parking in the newly designated prohibited places will merely park in unrestricted places further along New Road, Rigby Lane and St. Godwald's in addition to creating havoc in Marlborough
Avenue, Wellington Road and Rutherford Road. This is merely a shifting of the road safety problems from the present areas to others, not solving it.
Of particular concern is the designated school children's crossing area in New Road adjacent to Marlborough Court, just outside the restrictive zone, where commuters will park on both sides of the road outside of school hours.
If ever there was an action by a council to create a danger to children crossing between parked cars then this is it. Let's
hope that some provision to protect our children is put in place very soon before a fatality occurs.
The whole scheme has not been given enough thought or consultation to be effective, but then do we ever expect any different?
Martin Clark
Martin G. Clark & Co
Chartered Certified Accountants
New Road
Aston Fields
Bromsgrove
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