Row over town parking plan rumbles on in Newbury

Councillors were required to submit a response to the district council’s proposals, which affect a number of roads in the town centre, after amendments were made to the plans for Carnegie Road, King’s Road West, Link Road and Catherine Road following a number of concerns put forward by local residents and business owners.
Other aspects of the scheme include the scrapping of discounted bank holiday parking charges and replacing them with the full daily rate, rather than the £1 Sunday charge currently enforced on public holidays.
The main objections lodged by the town council related to the pay-by-phone only system, changes to Bank Holiday charges - arguing that maintaining the £1 charge on Sundays but changing public holiday rates would cause confusion and have little revenue benefit - and plans for 30minutes free parking should be increased to one hour, claiming the proposed limit would make Newbury less attractive as a retail destination and cause local traders to suffer.
However, the objections were not unanimously supported across the chamber.
Adrian Edwards (Con, Falkland) said: “I would have thought 30-minutes was adequate as it was intended for motorists to drop off items or collect them and not to do the shopping.”
He added: “Sundays have been increasing as a shopping day - I was told it is the second highest footfall in the town.
“I do not believe that they (West Berkshire Council) would propose this if there was no revenue benefit.”
However, council leader Julian Swift-Hook (Lib-Dem, Pyle Hill) said: “There is a petition of over 1,700 signatures opposing the introduction of these on-street parking measures.
“I think as a town council we should be listening to the public and not listening to West Berkshire Council.”
The public consultation into the on-street parking scheme closes today (Thursday) with the results expected to be published in October.
Following a statement released by West Berkshire Council last week, which said it would undertake a legal review on the back of a High Court case with Barnet Council, which found its parking policies to be illegal, council spokeswoman Peta Stoddart-Crompton this week said: “We are not having a legal review.
“It’s being reviewed internally to make sure that everything in the proposals is the correct following.
“That will be discussions between [council] officers and legal officers.”
She refused to be drawn on how long the review process would take.
The public consultation into the on-street parking scheme ends today (Thursday) and the results are expected to be published in October.