As one who regularly parks at High Brooms station in the mornings, I feel some sympathy for residents in the area who experience difficulty at the expense of us lazy selfish commuters. I live next to a park in Tunbridge Wells and often find it a problem to pull up outside my home. When this happens I remind myself during the two minute stroll back from the car that the park has been there for over a hundred years, and like High Brooms station, it is a public amenity requiring access by car owners. It should not come as a surprise to me that people continue to use something that was there long before I bought my house.
Next time I go house hunting I might prioritise off-road parking, but until then I’m content to share parking spaces on the public roads with other people who have an equal right to be there. Unfortunately Sally Morrow of Clifton Road wishes to resort to resident parking permits to solve her problem. This is a shame because it confers ownership of the public roads on householders who do not own parking spaces. The only winner in this scenario will be the Borough Council who will be able to charge residents indefinitely for something that would have been free to them if only they could learn to be unselfish. Instead of carping at commuters who struggle to pay daily parking at Tunbridge Wells station, why don’t we ask what could be done to extend the station car park at High Brooms, or better still, to remove the miles of double yellow lines which proliferate? While we’re at it – perhaps we should ask ourselves whether we really need that second or even third car outside our house. Perhaps the kids could walk to school? What happens to your resident parking bay when you are out at work for 8 hrs a day?
Tunbridge Wells is a commuter town and should provide adequate parking around its stations for everyone. I frequently drive into London when I can’t find a space around High Brooms – even with the congestion charge I find this cheaper, easier and more convenient. But the sight and smell of another 5,000 polluting cars like mine each morning could be avoided if we all learned to share.
Ahh... we're not petty residents, I promise - but where on earth do you suggest they extend the car park to? Perhaps the council could have accomodated the "public amenity" parking situation by not building riduclously expensive housing opposite the station - surely they could have squeezed a car park in there (I mean, they needed something to prop up the working mens' club after they undermined its foundations!). Hey guess, what? The next most appropriate scrap of land (next to the gas works) is being turned into housing... brilliant...
Anyway, I'm guessing you wouldn't like parking in the car park because it gets flooded! ;)
On a more serious note, commuter parking and the council did totally screw up the Silverdale Road businesses - commuter parking meant shops' customers couldn't park along it, and the council's genious reaction was to put up daytime curfew parking (not even time limited parking) which means there's now about 6 spaces you can fight over. Stupid. Wonder why decades-old businesses like Lavenders have had to close down...
Nice blog entry, always good to see HB namechecked!
Posted by: Ali Granger | Tuesday, November 09, 2004 at 05:13 PM