Mar 312006
 

A group of Kingsdown residents met Councillor Mark Wright recently to discuss the perennial (and worsening) problem of parking. We understand that the City Council intends to engage a consultant to advise on a residents’ parking scheme, but we do not yet know if this has been formally decided, not what the consultant’s brief might be. However, we want to make sure that any proposals take full account of local needs and that there is detailed discussion with residents. If you would like to help this group, or just to give them your views, please contact us using the link on the right and we will pass your message on.

Feb 152006
 

Three years ago, the Council was trying to promote the idea of controlled parking zones for Kingsdown, Clifton and other central parts of the city. There was a lot of opposition from traders and some residents, and only in Kingsdown was there a reasonable amount of support as well. So Council Officers spent a long time devising plans and working with residents to fine-tune the scheme and avoid some of its inevitable disadvantages. For example, they agreed to exclude the Back of Kingsdown Parade, as, otherwise, they would legally have to double-yellow-line nearly all of it because of its limited width, which would stop the largely successful ‘give and take’ parking system there.

There were repeated rumours that the official notices were to be issued to start a period of formal public consultation, but in the event nothing happened. Now the scheme has been kicked into the long grass, and it looks as if the main reason is that the powers that be want to keep Kingsdown as a handy free car-park for Broadmead.

On 13th October 2005, the City Council Cabinet approved the recommendations in a report called ‘An Amended Parking Strategy for Bristol and Associated Matters’. Paragraph 17 refers to Kingsdown:

Much work was carried out in 2001 to identify such an extension to the north of the existing zone in Kingsdown for example, and a residents? parking scheme acceptable to the majority of residents was approved in principle for statutory consultation purposes. It has not been possible to implement this scheme to date, and care must now be taken to avoid undue parking pressures while the Broadmead expansion project is underway. It is recommended that subject to due process, the Kingsdown CPZ and residents parking proposals be reappraised in the light of current circumstances.

What this means in plain English is very hard to tell. The officers in Parking Services don’t know because they are in the middle of yet another Council reorganisation, so the best they cacould suggest is to ring back early in 2006 and they might know then.

TK/13 December 2005