Dear Sir,
The facts are simply; we are a small rural town with approximately 27,000 residents, most of which are car owners, or have access to cars in order to go about their daily lives. When Aycliffe was first built you could probably count on one hand the number of cars owned and parked up along any of the streets around the town, now it’s not uncommon to see two and three car families on many of our streets.
Car parking is a serious problem in the town and there isn’t a quick solution because it’s only going to get worse as we see more and more cars on the roads.
The garages built back in the day were adequate for cars of the times, but a lot of modern cars are simply too big, some garages are boarded up and standing empty, with many more used as storage as people prefer to park outside of their homes for ease and security of their vehicle. Kerb side parking becomes a premium, with the pavements, grass verges and greens becoming the overspill areas of choice for many people, causing inconvenience for people walking on the pavement, and unsightly, costly damage to the surrounding areas.
So who is to blame? It’s always easy to point a finger and apportion blame and use that blame as justification for our own actions no matter how it impacts on our community. A community based problem requires a community based solution where we collectively and individually start to take personal responsibility for the damage we are doing to our town. Accountability comes at a price, as does the repairs for the damage caused, often over and over again as the repairs take longer to carry out, than the time it takes to damage the area again.
Out of town parking is not an option, neither is creating parking bays on every street, or the decimation of green spaces to create a free car park for every car in the town. Human nature being what it is, people like to exercise their right to park where they want, but every right comes with a responsibility attached. In the short term, maybe what we need to ease the situation is more residents to take it upon themselves to step up and accept personal responsibility for a problem that affects us all.
Cllr Phillip Hawkins