Review of Parking Billericay Area
The Residents’ Association has written to Essex County Council asking them to take into consideration the following suggestion when conducting their review of parking in the Billericay area:
“Remove the yellow lines from short restrictive areas and instead designate these spaces as residents’ permit areas with an enforcement period of, say, one hour a day. It is considered that where residents are able to park their cars on their drives they would not want to buy permits thus giving plenty of opportunity for those residents without drives to use the facility. The fee of £25 pa would help pay for the enforcement costs. All residents could be given the opportunity to buy visitors’ permits to allow for authorised use to park during the enforcement period.”
The County Council sent the following letter in reply:
“Essex County Council Highways are currently, following complaints from residents in respect of the increasing intrusion caused by commuter parking, investigating and undertaking a series of consultation processes with residents of affected roads, to ascertain their views on the way forwards to deal with this problem. This consultation also involves Basildon District Council, County and District Councillors, Town and Parish Councillors within this area.
In view of the scale of the affected areas we have sub-divided Billericay into five areas for investigation and proposals, informal consultations have been completed in areas 1 to 4 with area 5 due to be completed at the end of this month (March). These results will be analysed and any amendments considered for effectiveness and practicability. It is hoped that we would implement the schemes in the next financial year i.e. April 2008 to April 2009.
When we have firmed up the proposals the advisability of holding an exhibition in Billericay will be considered as part of the Formal Consultation and the way forward, with staff present to answer any questions.
The main restriction being considered is the use of a one hour No Waiting Restriction however Residential Permit parking is also being considered where this is impractical. Any existing one hour restrictions which are not in the proposed areas will not be changed.
Your suggestion of replacing the one hour restricted areas with Residential Permit Parking of a one hour duration would not be practical to enforce. Currently the yellow line can be patrolled by a mobile, which can cover the restricted areas within the time zone; whereas each residential permit area will have to be undertaken on foot in order that each vehicle can be examined to ascertain if it is displaying a permit correctly, this of course has resource implications and therefore additional costs.
A one-hour permit will not allow time for adequate enforcement, it is usual for permit zones to cover Monday to Friday/Saturday from 9am to 5pm. Also as these areas will be adjacent to and within walking distance of the town centre shops they would likely be used by shoppers causing a problem to residents. Permit schemes also have to be self financing; a poor take up rate by residents as acknowledged in your letter would not assist in this aspect.”