Otford Car Park

[Otford Parish Council]

Following a suggestion by a resident at the Annual Parish Meeting, the Parish Council has been considering a ‘one way‛ system in the High Street car park.

Designs have been produced by a Parish Councillor and can be viewed in the Parish Council office together with a copy of the current layout. The designs would involve taking a small piece of the Recreation Ground and obtaining planning consent for change of use to car parking. One design would involve the overall loss of two car parking spaces, even with the extra piece of land, the other would involve an overall loss of eight spaces. However with the extra piece of land, assuming planning consent could be obtained, and with the existing plan, four extra spaces could be added.

Please let us have your views. The plans can be viewed during normal office hours until January 30th.

Current Scheme

Scheme 1

Scheme 2

[David Tudor]

My preference would be for Scheme 1.

Parking slots at an angle facilitate parking (and exiting) compared to "straight" parking slots. Moreover, angled bays help to reinforce the one-way system, insofar as it would be extremely difficult to park cleanly in an angled bay if approaching from the wrong direction!

Easier parking and smoother traffic flow - Scheme 1 gets my vote.

[Ron Dullage]

First, I should express an interest. I am the Hall Manager of Otford Village Memorial Hall and have been a Trustee for twenty years.

As the Parish Council are very aware, I continue to be a strong advocate for the introduction of a pay and display system in the car park. I fervently believe that this is the only realistic option to resolve the over-crowding issues in the car park. The introduction of Scheme 1 would make it easier for users to navigate their way around the car park and find any available spaces more easily. However, it is not going to remove the problem of the lack of available spaces when there are several football matches, cricket matches, organised rambles, etc, etc occupying most of the available spaces in the car park. It also seems impossible to get any of these groups (and I include organisations using the Village Hall) to introduce car sharing schemes and to arrive with more than one person in each car.

I understand that there are issues for the cricket club (and possibly others) with regard to pay and display but, if the will is there to introduce such a scheme, these relatively minor obstacles can be overcome.

Scheme 1 will be an improvement on what we have currently but I urge the Parish Council to re-consider their objections to pay and display as I see this as the only long-term solution to a continuing problem.

[mrsm]

I am against pay and display, believing that the car park should be free to its residents.there are also those of us who need to use the car park as facilities at work in terms of parking are inadequate.I would object to having to pay to come to work each day.

[Debbiedooda]

I feel that the problem with the traffic flow of the car park is due to lack of spaces in the first place. Otford village has many clubs and activities, the popularity of the village itself creates demand for parking space. The one way system would at least let you drive around the car park until you find a space so scheme 1 is better as the angled spaces make you go in the right direction. But these one way systems only work if you have room to over take a stubborn driver who refuses to move on which frequently happens in Sevenoaks. I have been a daily user for the past year (Gatehouse Nursery St Bartholomews Hall) and have noticed that the lack of spaces is a major concern rather than traffic flow, there are many days when i am blocked in by other users who then go off to their various clubs. I agree with Ron Dullage. Pay and display may even encourage more people to walk or share it would also discourage drivers avoiding the station car park. There are many ways to impliment pay and display and i think these should also be considered by consultation with the regular users and local businesses.

[mrsm]

Those of us who need the car park for work could be issued with permits. Also the relocation of the recycle bins would free up at least 2 spaces and stop congestion as the council van parks alongside it each week reducing the traffic to one way flow.Also I would like to make the point that the school has a rising role and numbers are set to go up - so increasing the amount of parking spaces needs to be a priority

[Ron Dullage]

Why, mrsm, do you have the right to expect to be able to park in the village, at no cost, because you work here? I am not averse to the Parish Council issuing season tickets at, shall we say, £5.00 a week (approx. 72p per day!) as long as the applicant can prove that they have a justifiable reason for needing to park in the car park for longer than the, suggested, 2 or 3-hour free period. Try parking at the station and see how much that costs you!!!!!

I also think that this should be the case for those cottages on the south side of the High Street who have no individual parking of their own. If you buy a property that has no parking space and you expect to park on someone else's land every day and night I believe that you should pay for the pleasure. I pay for my garage/off-road parking in my Council Tax every month and, I would suggest, that this is probably more than £5.00 a week!

Something has got to be done about this car park. It has now been enlarged no less than five times and if you concrete over the entire recreation ground it would still fill up! Car parks act like a magnet - the more spaces that you have available, the more people will come and use it.

If more people, and I am thinking especially of those parents who do the school run, would walk down to the village it would a) improve their health and b) free up a lot of spaces in the car park. As I have said previously, I have been trying to get people using the Village Hall to car share but this is not always easy as they come from a wide geographical area. The school run, etc tends to be within a matter of less than a one mile radius.

[mrsm]

Not quite sure your tone is necessary.I was simply stating the fact that the car park is for the residents of otford and i am not in favour of charging evryone, young or old for its use - like some other money grabbing parishes.

[Ron Dullage]

It is regrettable if you find my tone "unnecessary" but the situation with the car park is something that I (and many other residents in the village) feel very strongly about.

Personally, I don't have a problem with people who work in the village parking there. That is a perfectly valid reason for using the car park. My reason for wanting to introduce pay and display is that village residents, via their rates, poll tax, council tax or whatever, have paid out many tens of thousands of pounds over the years to enlarge, re-surface, re-mark, etc the car park. Why should it be down to residents alone to finance the upkeep of this valuable resource when, I would suggest, that the majority of the people who use it do not live in the village?

Of course, if you are talking about the car park you cannot ignore the fact that there are many occasions during a week when the car park is full. I readily accept that some of these people are attending events in the Village Memorial Hall. The introduction of pay and display would, undoubtedly, free up spaces and, you never know, may encourage people to drive to the village with more than one person in their car!

On the subject of "tone", I find it hard to swallow your description of those other local authorities who have introduced such schemes as "money-grabbing". Just because they are looking to alleviate the load placed on their local residents by getting users of their car parks to assist with the cost of the upkeep and to try to ensure that there are spaces available for when people wish to use them does not qualify in my book as "money-grabbing".

[Barbara Darby]

I agree with Ron that no 1 design is preferable for maintaining movement around the carpark.I also feel that if a really good ticket scheme could be dreamed up( there must be someone out there) where the first half hour was free, people attending village funtions and villagers had discounts , people using it as a cheaper version to the station carpark were penalised and some of the money collected went to the Parish council instead of the parking meter company then a payment scheme would be a good idea.
How do other village councils do it.