The DDC cabinet agreed on 15th January 2024 to delay the introduction of parking charges in rural car parks (including our Reach road and Bay) pending a full review. They admitted they had not spoken to your Parish Council and they needed to undertake a full consultation. Your correspondence, engagement and good arguments have won the day. This battle was won, the fight continues.
There is a proposal to charge parking fees in the Bay all year round.
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£2.00/hour with a minimum charge of 50p plus the Ringo admin charge if not using cash
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Mon- Sunday 8am – 6pm all year round.
Currently it is from 1st March to 31st October. Back in 2020 the duration was only from April to September.
This will be voted on Monday 15th January at a Dover District Council DDC Cabinet Meeting. We were informed by our eagle eyed DDC representative Martin Bates this week. He has extracted the details below.
What do you think?
Please let these DDC councillors know as they will be voting. Cllr Charlotte Zosseder who is responsible for community and corporate property, Councillor Kevin Mills is the leader of the council and Councillor Jamie Pout is the deputy leader. The vote is this Monday!
Your Parish Council are focusing their efforts on protecting the village carpark click here to see but the implications of this change also need to be considered. What do you think?
Email is quicker (addresses below) and we would appreciate being copied in too but you can also write to them c/o Dover District Council, White Cliffs Business Park, Whitfield, CT16 3PJ
cllr-charlotte.zosseder@dover.gov.uk
cllr-jamie.pout@dover.gov.uk
cllr-kevin.mills@dover.gov.uk
parish.clerk@stmargaretspc.co.uk
or cllr-charlotte.zosseder@dover.gov.uk; cllr-jamie.pout@dover.gov.uk; cllr-kevin.mills@dover.gov.uk; parish.clerk@stmargaretspc.co.uk
This link All 4 together may or may not work for you – if it does it should magically populate your email to all 4 of the above – ready for you to start writing – give it a go!
click here for a copy of the letter the Parish Council has sent to DDC
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PROPOSED PARKING CHARGES FOR 2024/25
3.3: The following is an extract from the DDC Cabinet Agenda which will go for approval at their next meeting on 15th January. It was published late in the afternoon on Friday 5th January. Whereas the Reach Road car park proposals are cashless, DDC are proposing to continue allowing cash here. which is just as well given the poor telephone reception in the Bay. We believe the yearly parking pass will increase from £55 to £100. The current hourly rate will increase too.
(Public Pack)Agenda Document for Cabinet, 15/01/2024 18:00 (dover.gov.uk)
3.3: Car parking provision does not come for free, and the maintenance of the facilities provided are all at a significant cost to the Council. There are several car parks that have no charges but are well used. Some of these car parks also suffer from a low turnover, reducing the availability of spaces for all users. It is suggested that these should have charges introduced to relieve and prevent traffic congestion by the better management of the availability of parking spaces, and to generate income.
The suggested car parks are as follows:
- Borrow Pit, Walmer; Reach Road, St Margarets at Cliffe; High Street, Ash; High Street, Wingham; High Street, Eastry and Victoria Park, Deal.
The parking tariff within these car parks will match the existing tariffs and payments will be cashless only.
- Tides, Deal. There will be a free parking period of 3 hours for Tides users only.Other uses of the car park will be charged at £1.80 per hour.
- St Margarets Bay Car Park charges will apply all year round.
3.4: We have identified an increase in charges for both on and off-street pay & display of 20p per hour.
If you wish to download and display this poster please do click here for PDF poster
Some thought starters:
- DDC will have to continue allowing payment by cash due to the poor mobile phone reception in the Bay. The cost involved in administrating such a system are high so we doubt they will actually make much profit from the whole exercise but will it cause disruption, inconvenience and higher costs to the patrons of the carpark. Is it worth it?
- The cost of a year pass, we understand will go from £55 to £100 which is considerable!
- The argument that parking charges ensures better turnover of cars and more availability does not hold water in the cold, windy and wet winter months in the Bay when there is unlikely to be more than 3 cars.
- mud and flooding carpark – shouldn’t the carpark be better maintained?
- Where are the electric car charging points?
- isnt a good mobile phone system in the Bay a safety consideration and should be a prerequisite
- Surely it discriminates are less able villagers who are unable to walk down the muddy slippy steps or are unwilling to walk down Bill Hill with no pavements and aggressive car drivers.
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This page will be updated continuously.
Update: 15th January 2024 19:07
