'˜My fear is someone is going to die' - concerns about illegal parking on estate

Residents living on an estate in Battle fear someone will die unless action is taken against dangerous parking.
The dustcart struggles to navigate its way around the estateThe dustcart struggles to navigate its way around the estate
The dustcart struggles to navigate its way around the estate

Yvonne Clarke said Wellington Gardens has experienced a steady increase in incidents of antisocial parking, with cars blocking driveways and cars left on pavements and grass verges, forcing people, including the elderly and disabled, to walk in the road.

She said: “My disabled daughter, who has a walker, has to walk down the middle of the road over the potholes and is scared she is going to be hit by a car speeding up here.”

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Neighbour Vicki Wheatley added: “There are a number of disabled residents who use mobility scooters and electric wheelchairs that find it very hard to negotiate the parked cars on either sides of the narrow road.

“Due to all the extra traffic in the Gardens, the road itself is in an appalling state and could do with resurfacing. I believe this was last done back in the 1970s if the back of my mind is correct.”

Simone Dodgson, who has lived in Wellington Gardens for just over six years, said: “There is a significant problem with parking around here.

“Many people park up who either don’t live here or are not visiting residents here.

“The cars quite often are dangerously parked.

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“Inconsiderate parking has at times stopped rubbish removal vans from accessing the rubbish bins.

“This problem seems to have worsened particularly over the last six months.”

All expressed concerns that poor parking could hamper access for emergency service vehicles.

Yvonne said: “I even said in an email to Highways and Rother to get their heads together before a child dies, people on mobility scooters get hurt or there is a fire and the emergency services cannot get through.”

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She added: “It’s been building up over the years and now it’s got so bad it’s beyond a joke.

“Something is going to happen because people are really at the end of their tether.

“All the police have said is we can call them out but they cannot guarantee they will come out because they have got other things to deal with.

“I know they are short staffed, I understand that.

“My fear is someone is going to die up here because of it.”

Superintendent Warren Franklin said: “There are ongoing discussions between the police, East Sussex County Council and Rother District Council which have been facilitated by MP Huw Merriman, to try to look at the adoption of civil parking enforcement (CPE) and some agreement around the future position of parking.

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“Parking offences are not criminal, but parking violations become criminal if they go to court.

“It must be stressed that with changes to policing and the courts service nationally, parking offences do not feature in any key risk assessment due to the very few local authorities where CPE has not been adopted. Parking ticket revenue is not retained by Sussex Police and any parking fine money goes into the government. Any scheme set up by the local authorities can retain the revenue generated by permit schemes, pay and display machines or tickets.

“The legislation was introduced 20 years ago to take the enforcement activity and burden away from the police in a period when police resources were far more available, the challenges now for police are even greater. The fact that Rother and Wealden are the only two areas in the South East not to have adopted this is significant and there is support for them to do so from Sussex Police Command and from the Office for the Police and Crime Commissioner.

“Currently the only enforcement activity by our officers or PCSOs with the power to do so is to only issue tickets where there is dangerous parking, criminal use of blue badges in disabled bays or any other deliberate and repeated violations which may cause an obstruction.

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“The police service assesses its use of resources based on threat, harm and risk and this means that parking offences are low in relation to the other demands on our service.”

Meanwhile a spokesman for East Sussex Highways said it was “aware of the condition of the road”.

He added: “We repaired a pothole in the area on Friday, June 16, and will continue to regularly monitor the road.”

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