Resident parking could be coming to Sidmouth town centre

Plans to start legal proceedings to introduce parking for residents were given the go-ahead at a Devon County Council (DCC) meeting, at Knowle, on Friday (December 7).

Councillor Stuart Hughes, who is responsible for highways, said the areas likely to be included would be the stretch from Victoria Road in the north, Riverside Road to the east, Station Road to the west and the Esplanade to the south.

The residents’ parking scheme would include a mix of resident-only spaces, limited waiting spaces and pay and display spaces for short-term visitors.

It all follows the results of a mail drop exercise in June, where letters were sent to residents asking their views. The meeting heard the resident parking scheme is more popular closer to the town centre and seafront.

Of respondents, 51.1 per cent, were in favour and 48.9 per cent were opposed, although only 9.3 per cent of households responded. The exercise had 893 responses. Of this, 563 said there was a parking problem in their area and 293 believed this was caused by commuters and 433 supported having residents’ parking in their street/area.

The exact roads to be included has not been decided. DCC will hold a further consultation on the proposed plans.

Cllr Hughes welcomed the decision to progress, adding: “It seems to work well in other areas and there seems to be a lot of commuters that park there and residents then can’t find a space. The scheme will either move them further out or they will start paying for parking - a season tickets works out at pence a day.”

Cllr Sara Randall-Johnson raised her concerns, saying: “If you want to keep healthy market and coastal towns, there is a need to provide parking for visitors, so we don’t want to strangle the economy.”

A rough outline of the roads that might be included in the traffic order for resident parking in Sidmouth. (Image: Archant)

Cllr Richard Scott said resident parking schemes are ‘not a magic wand to solve everyone’s parking problems’ and said they ‘push the parking problems to other roads’.

“A resident’ parking scheme doesn’t guarantee you a parking space and that aspect needs to be understood by residents as well,” he said.

A separate consultation will be undertaken in Sidford after the mail drop suggested there was interest.

Map showing the support (or lack of) for resident parking. In Green, more than 50 per cent supported it, and in red, less than 50 per cent supported it (Image: Archant)