Parking Issues in the Village

Published: 17 August 2021

The Parish Council is aware of the parking issues raised within the village centre. This has become a real issue recently although it has been reviewed previously as it has been problematic from time to time in the past.

Whilst the Council is grateful for the thriving local businesses and beautiful local scenery, lockdown and the easing of it has presented lots of issues with increased numbers of visitors with litter, dog fouling and parking. We have increased litter and dog bin facilities, but the Council recogise that parking remains an issue.

The Council has previously investigated several sites for additional parking, but there is no additional land available in or near the High Street.

The Council installed weekend signage and an additional Parking sign to encourage people to park at the school car park at weekends. The Council also provides parking at the pavilion and the Playschool / Goods yard House sites.

The Council will continue to monitor the situation and is looking into some portable weekend signs to highlight the parking at the school and improved signage at Goods Yard House.

The Council has to be mindful of the conservation area and cluttering it with signage. In addition, it was noted that the current situation was exacerbated by the unusually high level of visitors to the area and this needed to be monitored before further intervention was made.

The Council has looked into the feasibility of yellow line schemes, but they are currently unenforceable in Wealden and not a matter for the police, as well as being expensive. This might also have the effect of transferring the parking issues to other areas.

The other issue is that despite providing and signposting parking, drivers mainly look for parking at the nearest available space to where they want to visit and it is difficult to encourage people to park further away.

Illegal and parking which may cause an accident should be reported to 101 for police intervention. The Council has asked the PCSO to attend at the weekends to see what input they can provide.

As always any feedback please contact the Council in the first instance