Cambridgeshire County Council are proposing a 24 hour waiting restriction (double yellow lines) over nearly all of the road in St. Matthew’s Gardens. Official notice advertising the Traffic Regulation Order has been given and the deadline for any objections is 19th December 2011.
Double yellow lines around virtually the whole of St. Matthew's Gardens should NOT be allowed to go through as this will displace a significant amount of vehicles to the surrounding streets, which will have a major impact on the local residents & the area by exacerbating the already severe parking problem. The extent of the restrictions is also in direct contravention of County Council policies.
A small group of SMG property owners, the Steering Group, is behind the proposal and has been pushing for total restrictions against the wishes of the majority of local residents without any consideration for them, the area and the community.
Because the Steering Group is funding the proposal and using the worsening parking problem in SMG, specifically in terms of access and safety, to their advantage to support their objectives, they think they can impose their 'total restriction' view.
Council Officers and Ward Councillors are helping them achieve as closely as possible their ultimate objective thereby contravening the Council's policies and ignoring the wishes of the majority of SMG residents. This is clearly demonstrated in the recent informal consultation in terms of how the outcome has been manipulated to this effect.
The Council Officers and the Ward Councillor switched the plan which had majority support in the consultation to a more resticted plan greatly reducing the number of outlined parking spaces, in line with the objectives of the Steering Group, while maintaining that the same number of spaces had been retained.
The final plan is also based on the opinion of a few home owners (Steering Group) who do not want parked cars outside their homes.
38 dwellings out of 210 in SMG do not have any parking provision at all and there is no provision for visitors to the estate and other essential regular service providers.
Under the modified proposals, on-street parking spaces would be limited to just 12 (including one space for a car club) in spite of the fact that the SMG development could easily accommodate more than 40 spaces without any highway safety implications.
In the planning application, the estate developer committed themselves to providing sufficient parking spaces (90% off-street) to meet Council Policies with additional on-street parking for residents. This they failed to deliver which resulted in the displacement of vehicles to the surrounding streets. The Council Officers and the Ward Councillors have also ignored this background and the planning history of the estate.
All plans produced by the Council Officers are questionable since they are based not merely in terms of highway safety but rather on the objectives of the applicants (The Steering Group).
The proposed extensive parking restrictions, cannot be justified on the basis of safety or access, and are, therefore, in contravention of the County Council's policy relating to the provision of Minor Traffic Measures.
The following policies have been contravened in the planned TRO, (other issues relating to planning conditions/obligations have not been covered here):