Surrey’s two-yearly parking review proposal for Weybridge is planned to be advertised this August. We’ll send out another notice when we get the date. Apart from a minor permit change in one scheme, all the proposals bar one is recommended because of safety. The exception is the proposal for Wey Road which some people say is a solution looking for a problem.
When the proposals are advertised you will be able to offer your comments, objections or support for any of the schemes. You do not have to live in the street concerned. The Weybridge streets with changes are:
- Anderson Road
- Barham Close
- Castle Road
- Cedar Grove
- Churchill Drive
- Cross Road
- Dryham Park
- Egerton Road/li>
- Fortescue Road
- Oatlands Chase
- Oatlands Drive
- Park Lawn Road
- Parkway
- Pennington Drive
- Radnor Road
- Ronneby Close
- Rosslyn Park
- Round Oak Road
- Rylands Place
- St George’s Road
- St Mary’s Road
- The Paddocks
- Vale Court
- Vale Road
- Wey Road
Anderson Road. Allow additional properties to be eligible to apply for permits with the parking scheme 142 Oatlands Drive and 120 Oatlands Drive
Cross Road. Allow additional properties to be eligible to apply for permits with the parking scheme 142 Oatlands Drive and 120 Oatlands Drive
Park Lawn Road. The restrictions being “revocated” (zigzag lines on the map) which are “No parking for certain periods” are being replaced by “No parking at any time”.
Round Oak Road – see Wey Road
Vale Court. Allow additional properties to be eligible to apply for permits with the parking scheme 142 Oatlands Drive and 120 Oatlands Drive
The history.
The parking engineers do not believe that comprehensive parking controls are required for Wey Road and Round Oak Road.
The reason is quite simple, parking controls are introduced to meet concerns about the four main criteria:
- Safety
- Access
- Congestion
- Parking stress
Even a casual observer would recognise that Wey Road in does not fall into any of these criteria (except at the entrances which were dealt with already).
However, a petition was submitted by Michael O’Sullivan of Wey Road to the
5 December 2019 committee:
Expand further, as part of its 2019/20 Elmbridge Parking Review, the existing Controlled Parking Zone presently covering Elmgrove Road and Oakdale Road in Weybridge (and soon also to encompass Dorchester Road and Gascoigne Road) to include Wey Road and Round Oak Road.
The petition raised 64 signatures. Surrey does not verify the petitioners’ location.
Surrey parking professionals replied.
The existing parking scheme in Elmgrove Road and Oakdale Road, which will also be introduced shortly in Dorchester Road and Gascoigne Road is not technically a controlled parking zone, but a resident permit parking scheme. It is the county council’s policy to introduce resident permit parking controls in roads where residents with insufficient off street parking face undue competition from non-residents for the existing on-street parking space, which is the case in these four roads, but is not the case in Wey Road and Round Oak Road. Therefore to extend the scheme would not be appropriate. In the additional details supplied by the petition creator, there is a suggestion of introducing some sort of short stay parking in Wey Road and Round Oak Road, although the details are not clear. However it is generally considered that the type of parking most lacking in Weybridge is free long term parking (for employees working in local businesses and shops, for example), not short stay parking, of which plenty is already provided for free on the High Street and in other surrounding roads, as well as the various off street car parks in the town. So it is not necessary to introduce more short term parking in these two roads.
The possibility of introducing new parking controls or restrictions in Wey Road and Round Oak Road, and in other roads in the area, or changing existing controls, may be considered as part of the next parking review. This will provide sufficient time to allow for the new parking controls in Dorchester Road and Gascoigne Road to be implemented, and for the impacts of them to be assessed, before making any decisions about the introduction of any more parking controls in the area.
In response Mike O’Sullivan told the Surrey Local Committee that between 750 and 1000 commuter vehicles park in Weybridge each year The town needs long stay parking, but not at the expense of short term parking and inconvenience for residents. He is not requesting a resident only parking scheme and wants to make space available for short term parking for those wanting to access the town for shopping or business.
Mike O’Sullivan’s estimate of how many commuters arrive in the town centre might even be an underestimate but as many residents drive outside of Weybridge in the morning. The net requirement could be negative. Initial surveys suggest that for all we know more people could leave central Weybridge than enter).
Committee Decision
The Surrey Local Committee decided that the Parking Strategy and Implementation Manager to consider and agree the details of parking restrictions in Wey Road and Round Oak Road to be added to the 2019/20 parking review, in consultation with the divisional member and Local Committee Chairman.
Professionals‘ proposal
As the committee asked the parking professionals to come up with a special scheme they naturally did so.
Introduce a controlled parking zone covering Wey Road and Round Oak Road, operating Monday-Saturday 9am-7pm. Introduce DYLs (No Waiting At Any Time) and singe yellow lines and double yellow lines to prevent obstructive parking. Introduce parking bays – ‘Monday-Saturday 9am-7pm permit holders or 3hrs no return to zone’ ~ 27 spaces. This will allow permit holders (i.e. residents) to park in these bays for an unlimited amount of time, and anyone else to park for up to three hours for free. Introduce parking bays – ‘Monday-Saturday 9am-7pm 3hrs or pay by phone for longer stay’ ~ 63 spaces. This will allow anyone to park for up to three hours for free or pay a small fee to stay for longer, with a tariff of 50p/hr for the paid for period. An administration fee of 19p would apply to each transaction.
Road marking and signs
The controlled parking zone would require signs at the entry and exit points, and the parking bays would require upright signing. Key permit eligibility details (full details are listed in the draft TRO):
- Residents eligible to apply for all permit types are those occupying any residential address in Wey Road or Round Oak Road.
- The cost for a resident permit is £50pa for the first permit, and £75pa for any subsequent permits issued.
- The maximum number of resident permits issuable per place of abode is calculated by the number of vehicles registered to the property minus the number of off street spaces at the property.
- The maximum number of resident visitor permits issuable per place of abode per year is 120, at a cost of £2 per permit. Each permit lasts all day and is specific to the registration number of a visitor’s vehicle.
- Permit types available within this scheme are residents, visitors, carers and operational.
- There are no business permits.
Only one Weybridge Riverside councillors was permitted to speak. Cllr Ashley Tilling made a good speech but only a couple of other councillors raised concerns and those demonstrated their lack of understand the parking controls implementation process.
After a final roundup by Cllr Tim Oliver the committee decided the following.
That the Local Committee (Elmbridge) agreed that:
- The county council’s intention to introduce the proposal shown in Annex 1 (map above) is formally advertised, and subject to statutory consultation.
- If objections are received the Parking Strategy and Implementation Team Manager is authorised to try and resolve them;
iii. If any objections cannot be resolved, the Parking Strategy and Implementation Team Manager, in consultation with the Chairman/Vice Chairman of this committee and the county councillor for the division, decides whether or not they should be acceded to and therefore whether the order should be made, with or without modifications.
Reasons: To better manage parking demand in Wey Road and Round Oak Road, so as to improve access for short term parking for visitors to the Weybridge area, whilst maintaining parking as needed by residents and their visitors.
For those residents of Wey Road and Road Oak Road and any adjoining roads that contest the benefits that are supposedly to come from the M O’Sullivan plan then you can object by visiting http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/elmbridgeparking and complete the on-line survey.
If you need help or advice send your name address and email to saynotocontrols@gmail.com
If anyone wants more information on how to object to these proposals please use the email address SayNoToControlls@gmail.com for help and guidance .
I post as the Michael O’Sullivan named in “The history” section of your article.
I presented the said Petition in my role as Chair of the Residents’ Association, not as an individual resident, on behalf of 52 out of a total of 57 households in the two roads concerned.
Only 5 households declined to sign, and I take personal exception to the comment inferring that the 64 signatures attracted by the Petition may in any way be dubious. For your information, 12 of the 64 were either duplicates from the same household, or from non-residents, and were therefore omitted when calculating the 91.2% majority.
However, the Petition ONLY covered the principle that parking restrictions would simply be explored; the proposed Scheme is the result of that exploration.
Before the Petition was even approved, the 5 dissenting households tried to sabbotage it with the aim of having it aborted before birth, and were willing for all households to be denied their democratic right of choice. How households respond will not be known until mid-October, but at least the Local Committee upheld that opportunity to determine their immediate environment themselves.
In the absence of any counter argument until the appearance of some illegal, totally one-sided and inaccurate fly-posting on Saturday, nobody had bothered to communicate a single word of what may have been perfectly valid concerns. The quality of the false arguments now made public, and to be found under various windscreen wipers nearby, suggests a possible reason.
The primary purpose of the restrictions is to enhance the availability of short-term space to attract shoppers to the Town to assist high street retail footfall (as supported by the Weybridge Town Business Group and Weybridge Society), NOT to prevent parking entirely.
Surrey has asked whether or not residents would prefer Saturday operation to be excluded, and it is likely that most responders will. It is further hoped that restrictions will end at 17:00 rather than 19:00hrs to provide free space for early evening visitors to the Town.
Our Association is not naive enough to think that our households can compete with the whole Riverside Ward on sheer numbers alone, and realise that it’s not human nature to support something from which no benefit will be derived.
Restrictions will only be applied if a significant majority of those households most affected by the change support them, but of paramount importance was for residents to be given a say in determining their own environment themselves.
As long time residents at The Corner House, Round Oak Road for over 40 years, we are in favour of the revised parking arrangements proposed above. These should limit the amount of current long-term unregulated non-resident parking, eg white vans over several days, that we have been subject to over recent years, plus it should hopefully stop non-resident cars being parked Illegally on the pavements, making it dangerous for pedestrians….especially for someone who is disabled in a wheel chair, and parents with children in buggies.
Currently non-resident cars can be found parked free all day and overnight in dangerous positions where they obstruct corners such that it is not possible to see any ongoing traffic. This should be more controlled under the proposed scheme.
We, as we understand do the clear majority of residents in Wey Road and Round Oak Road, are therefore in favour of the proposed changes in parking arrangements shown in the two maps above.
With respect to meeting the four requirements listed above, there is no doubt that the way and locations that non-residents park in both roads compromises Safety, Access and Congestion( eg, obstructing views of on-coming traffic plus danger to pedestrians due to on-pavement parking, plus congestion with cars being parked on both sides of the roads most often on the pavement, and making it difficult to access driveways, and also for delivery vehicles to operate)
Yours sincerely
Roy and Annegret Palmer
I totally disagree with closing Baker to traffic. To make Baker Street one way bringing traffic off the roundabout into the town centre seemed a good idea, to close a road in an already congested town centre is illogical.
Also I believe will contribute to congestion elsewhere
Maureen Kirk