Background
While initially the Highway Authority had no plans (or funding) to impose parking restrictions following the adoption of St Matthew's Gardens as public highway, an informal Steering Group made an application under the Cambridgeshire County Council Minor Traffic Measures for total parking restrictions and offered the funding.
Total parking restrictions contravene the County Council's policies and the Council initially rejected the idea.
The Steering Group then put pressure on the Council Officers and local Ward Councillors to change this.
The Steering Group claimed that the majority of residents and owners were in support of total restrictions, however, this has proved not to be the case as shown in the recent consultation (see below). They held a few meetings under the title of 'Residents Meetings' inviting local Ward Councillors to support their claim and the SMG home owners but excluding those who privately rented and the Granta Housing Residents.
The Steering Group also claimed that the previous parking ban enforced by a private company who operated a ticketing scheme was working well for years in order to justify a continuation of the parking ban. The question here is why, if it was so successful, was it replaced by the most notorious clamping & towing company in the country thereby tarnishing the reputation of the SMG estate, and bringing a convicted criminal to the area to enforce it?
The Informal Consultation
The consultation was conducted by Ward Councillor Nichola Harrison.
The Outcome
Only 62 (29%) residents out of a total of 210 responded to the consultation:
| Want no parking at all | 15 (24% of the vote) |
| Support the proposal sent | 42 (67% of the vote) |
| Want more parking than shown on the plan sent | 5 (8% of the vote) |
The Councillor interpreted the outcome to suggest that majority support was for 11 car spaces, however respondents voted for the plan shown which even a layman could see has more than double this number of spaces.
Click here to see consultation
Click here to see consultation outcome
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| Plan 1 (consultation) shows total parking space length of 146m | Plan 3 (outcome) shows total parking space length of 66m |
The suggestion that both plans provide the same number of spaces is quite clearly false. Take a look at both plans here. The total length of parking spaces shown on plan 1 (informal consultation) is 146 metres in comparison with 66 metres on plan 2.
Maybe some owners are completely against on-street parking because it will have a negative impact on their lucrative business of renting out car spaces!
