Petition launched in protest at proposed £30 fee at East Sussex car park

At the end of last month, Rother District Council (RDC), which runs the car park in Old Lydd Road, announced proposals for visitors to pay the flat fee of £30 to park for the day, discounted to £15 for those arriving after 3pm.

Since the plans were unveiled, an online petition on Change.org has bee set up by Emma Burton, with more than 100 people signing it so far.

She said: “Rother District Council have said they are to increase the parking charges to £30 a day at the main car park at Camber Sands. This amount will be charged if you arrive before 3pm regardless of the time you are staying and then £15 after 3pm.

“Many, many people use this beach as a cheaper alternative to take families and pets out for the day or a few hours, people who cannot afford to spend £30 just for parking.

"People who make their own picnics to save money, can’t afford to spend lots of money going to theme parks or days out that costs a lot of money. This charge will result in yet another place they cannot go because of parking charges.

“Dog owners are already limited as to where they can let their dogs run. The majority aren’t going to pay £30 to walk their dog.

"An excuse of reducing illegal parking is ridiculous, as this will cause an even bigger problem with on-street parking in the village because people will not be able to pay this.

“The businesses that make money from visitors will also suffer as the visitor numbers will, in my opinion, reduce substantially.”

The flat fees would also apply at the Putting Green car park in Camber, although only for a single season as this site is set to be decommissioned to make way for a recently-approved housing development.

The council said it will continue to offer tariffed parking at its Camber Sands Western car park, but at a higher price than is currently charged. The new fees will start at £4 for up to an hour, rising up to £20 for more than six hours of parking.

At the council cabinet meeting on March 27 when the plans were announced, Cllr Kevin Dixon, the council’s Liberal Democrat cabinet member for finance, said: “What we wanted to achieve is more income from Camber Sands, because it is not fair at the moment that the residents of Rother are subsidising the activities at Camber, which are generally used by people who don’t live in Rother.

“It is important that we try and get as much back into the council for the massive costs we have at Camber.”

The petition is at www.change.org/p/stop-camber-sands-parking-charge-increase-to-30-a-day.