| When in power, the Conservatives spent some £50,000 on researching
parking problems. The contractors reported back to the now Labour run Council
as basically said there are no parking problems.
Parking by commuters using Hatfield railway station is a big problem around
Hatfield station. Whilst the Old Town is very vocal, the problem is wider
with streets on both sides of the tracks suffering with commuters leaving
their cars all day. There are other areas in Hatfield which have parking
problems.
Banning Commuter Parking in the problem areas.
This would relieve them but will just push the problem elsewhere.
Example
In Watford, residents parking was brought to half of Nascot Village which
is opposite the railway station. All this did was push the commuter parking
into the area of Nascot village not covered by residents parking - as pointed
out at the time by residents. The parking programme was introduced in the
rest of Nascot village, which did the trick, to a degree, but there were
commuters still parking one mile away from the station. Any scheme
for Hatfield would have to take this into account.
Residents Parking Scheme.
This scheme works by designating areas or even the whole district as residents
parking. Residents would be charged a fee to be able to park a car on the
road within zones. As outlined in the above example, the area would have
to be larger than where the current problems are. The District Council would
have to run the scheme either by itself or by contracting out the scheme.
This could be done in partnership with other councils. To cover the costs
of enforcing the scheme, the District Council would have to employ traffic
wardens and collect fines. There will have to be a charge levied for
on street parking by residents. There is a range of charges which could rise
with each additional car in the household.
More Parking Restrictions.
More double yellow and single yellow lines would give relief to residents
but will push the problems elsewhere. There is also the problem of enforcement.
The Police don't want to enforce more restrictions through the use of their
traffic wardens.
But there is News.....
The County Council is looking at putting the District Councils in charge
of parking control, so Welwyn Hatfield Council would be employing traffic
wardens and would collect parking fines. Is a Residents Parking Scheme on
its way? |
