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Making Eastbourne parking situation better is on the agenda
FREE parking in Eastbourne town centre during the winter, changes to seafront parking charges, less draconian wardens and a more flexible scheme would help boost the town's trade and ease some of the hatred towards the controversial parking regime.
Those ideas were put forward at a packed meeting of traders, hoteliers and business figures at the Town Hall on Wednesday night, called in the aftermath of an ongoing 250,000 review into the parking scheme.
Around 150 people packed into the Court Room to take part in what was, at times, a very heated debate with East Sussex County Council's parking boss and Tory councillor Matthew Lock, Dave Cooper, who heads up the transport sub committee on the MP's Commission, and Darren Weir, an Eastbourne hotelier. Chairing the meeting was the Gazette and Herald's editor-in-chief Keith Ridley.
Councillor Lock, who made the original decision to bring controlled parking into the town in October 2008 - despite objections from some traders and businesses and venomous opposition from Eastbourne Borough Council - faced a hostile audience as he outlined the need for the independent review and admitted that some aspects of the scheme, including parking charges on the seafront, had not worked and needed tweaking.
Cllr Lock was lambasted by traders from Langney Road, Seaside Road, the top end of Terminus Road, South Street and Grove Road who said the parking charges had left their already struggling businesses on their knees as shoppers boycotted pay to park and instead headed out of town to retail parks where parking is free.
Others said they did want two-hour parking limits outside their shops as customers only needed to pop in for a short time and some members of the audience said they wanted four-hour parking limits for when they went for lengthy hair appointments and meals out and had to keep moving their cars.
Hoteliers raised concerns that some of the guest permits were too complicated to use and visitors to the town were being hit with parking fines for not filling in the permits correctly and the introduction of a park and ride scheme was also discussed along with improving the town's car parks to make them more attractive to shoppers.
Darren Weir, who spoke as a resident and businessman, said if pay to park couldn't be scrapped altogether, politicians should put party politics aside and work together to come up with a more user friendly parking scheme.
"Scrap the scheme in the winter," said Mr Weir. "Simplify the scheme, look into a park and ride scheme, employee permits, look again at yellow lines in the town and coach bays and loading bays.
"Eastbourne is working towards one goal and the county council is working towards another. Politics needs to be taken outside of the arena and we need to work together."
Cllr Lock said the results of the independent review would be known in September and said he would be asking reviewers to look into some of the concerns raised at the meeting.
He added, "I cannot give any cast iron guarantees here tonight as to make decisions ahead of the review would be wrong but I will be taking the points raised here back to the review.
"I agree the seafront parking hasn't worked but that is why we are having the review and asking residents and businesses exactly what they think needs changing."
After the meeting, Dave Cooper said he thought it had been an interesting meeting and added, "In Mr Lock's defence I think he took away a strength of feeling that what we have isn't working. It was clear to me the vast majority of people present do not want the pay to park scheme and the vote demonstrated that.
"I hope Councillor Lock does take seriously the feeling that came from the meeting and I would give thanks to the large number of people who came to debate the subject and apologise to those that had to stand for more than two hours."
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Weather for Eastbourne
Sunday 27 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 12 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: South west
