There is a new and real proposal to introduce charging for parking in our Reach Road Car Park Again!!
This will be voted on Monday 2nd June 2025 at a Dover District Council DDC Cabinet Meeting 6pm. It will be discussed that same afternoon at an Extraordinary Session of the Overview and Scrutiny committee. Our thanks to Cllr Martin Bates for alerting us to the extraordinary session upon receipt of his papers.
We understand, but it is still unclear, the proposals are:
- First hour free
- Eligible residents can buy a permit – probably in the £150/year region
- £2.00/hour – unclear if there is a maximum or minimum daily charge, there will be the Ringo admin surcharge
- Mon- Sunday 8am – 6pm, likely to be cashless – Ringo only
Their reasoning: – with a time frame of Q3 2025/26
Option 1 Introduce charging at rural car parks – Introduce charging at currently free rural car parks for stays of more than one hour in line with short stay charging across the rest of the district. This should maximise turnover at the car parks and help cover the costs of asset operation and maintenance. This will include making sure adequate parking restrictions are in place in on-street areas.
Option 2 Introduce a resident permits system at Reach Road, St Margarets car park – With excess demand identified at Reach Road car park through the survey analysis, a resident permits system might help manage this by discouraging non-essential parking (in addition to introducing charging as per Option 1 above).
What do you think?
Please let these DDC councillors know as they will be voting at cabinet. Cllr Kevin Mills, Cllr E A Biggs, Cllr P M Brivio, Cllr G Cowan, Cllr J Nee, Cllr L M Wright and these are voting at scrutiny Cllr D Cronk, Cllr Daniel Parks and Cllr J Loffman.
Note most of these councillors are new and have not heard from you in the past. Some of you may remember Jeff Loffman who was teacher at our primary school a decade or so ago.
Your Parish Council will be doing all in their power to fight this, more details below, but it will be the views of the community, your thoughts, your pain, your indignation and strength, that could swing this. Some of you can dust off emails from 2020 or 2022 or 2024, others can write anew. What are your concerns? – the school, the nursery, the danger of unsafe street parking, our local businesses, their viability, the undermining of local efforts to improve road safety and reduce congestion and finally why you think St Margaret’s specific needs require it to be exempt from this proposal.
In January 2024, 209 residents (these are the emails the Parish Council are aware of) wrote to the councillors and persuaded them with their arguments to delay introducing charges. Community power does work – You can see more details here
The Parish Council has asked for guidance to understand the process of transferring the car park asset to ourselves from Dover District Council. This is an option but the devil, as always, will be in the detail, and we would have to totally understand the responsibilities and liabilities, probably with a public meeting, before taking this on. As yet DDC have not explored this possibility – maybe introducing charging is an easier option. We need those facts now. Everybody appreciates that is costs money to maintain a car park.
Email is quicker (addresses below) and we would appreciate being copied in too but you can also write to them c/o The cabinet Committee, Dover District Council, White Cliffs Business Park, Whitfield, CT16 3PJ
It has been suggested that we email all the councillors on the cabinet committee and some of them on the scrutiny
Copies these addresses into the To box of your email and then wait a few minutes.
cllr-edward.biggs@dover.gov.uk; cllr-kevin.mills@dover.gov.uk; cllr-pamela.brivio@dover.gov.uk; cllr-gordon.cowan@dover.gov.uk; cllr-michael.nee@dover.gov.uk; cllr-lynne.wright@dover.gov.uk; parish.clerk@stmargarestpc.co.uk; cllr-martin.bates@dover.gov.uk; cllr-david.cronk@dover.gov.uk; cllr-daniel.parks@dover.gov.uk; cllr-jeffrey.loffman@dover.gov.uk
You can look at the cabinet agenda (Public Pack)Agenda Document for Cabinet, 02/06/2025 18:05 or the scrutiny agenda here (Public Pack)Agenda Document for Overview and Scrutiny Committee, 02/06/2025 16:00
A representative of your Parish Council will be registering to speak at the Scrutiny meeting. Linked here is a copy of the objection previously sent by your Parish Council to Dover Cabinet members and the Head of Parking Services on the 7th May
If you wish to download and display this poster please do, simply click on the picture below to open as a pdf version.
