Having lived in Scarborough town centre for a number of years the residential parking situation is generally dire. It can be quite difficult to find a parking space near your home. It is always interesting to listen to the stories of other residents, how much worse their parking problems are and have a think about easy remedies.
One disabled resident lives near The Street off Dean Road and their car is their lifeline. The particular road is busy twenty four hours a day. As you would expect during an evening and through the night, it is mostly packed with the vehicles of residents. Mostly, but you don’t need a permit to park during those hours.
During the day it is packed with the vehicles of folks who work at The Street and surrounding businesses. The disabled resident has great difficulty getting around and upon returning home they have to park a couple of streets away and it is a bit of a struggle getting back home.
There is a solution however. North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) could create a disabled bay outside their home. The length of time to get a disabled bay implemented is long. First it takes visits from people with clipboards to assess the situation. The whole process then needs to be rubber stamped and written into local traffic orders by solicitors. It could potentially cost a few thousand quid for a few blobs of white paint.
If another disabled person turns up and parks outside their home, they are right back to square one.
This got me thinking about a long term solution that would improve the lives of residents. What drives working people to park on those residential streets during working hours?
Currently, you can buy two different business parking permits from two different councils to park in the area. From NYCC you can buy an on-street parking permit for £125. From Scarborough Borough Council (SBC) you can buy an off-street parking permit for £493. Naturally everyone buys a permit for £125 and parks on residential streets.
The parking problems are created by the two local authority bureaucracies that serve the area. So I popped down to Dean Road car park during business hours on three days in October and took some photos.
15th October 2018
17th October 2018
19th October 2018
Now I’ve got an idea in my head that is so stunningly simple even Baldrick could think of it. You all probably looked at the first two pictures and saw the solution yourselves. Why don’t we use car parks for parking cars? Or perhaps: Make Car Parks Used Again!
The question is, between 50 gormless councillors on Scarborough Borough Council, 13 feckless councillors on North Yorkshire County Council representing the Borough and the massed ranks of clipboard-wielding bureaucrats in highways and parking at both of those local authorities, why couldn’t they see this simple solution?
As you can see, there are many easy solutions out there for the problems we face in the Borough. New leadership is required, fresh ideas are desperately needed to direct the Council Officers appropriately and reinvigorate the Borough. Voting for the same old useless faces who’ve never done anything simply isn’t an option.
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