PARKING CONSULTATION
We are seeking your opinion on whether a Residents’ Permit Scheme should be introduced on the Mountfitchet Estate. This type of scheme on the Mountfitchet Estate can be used to free up parking for residents and their visitors by preventing non-residential parking, in this case from those that commute from the station or park and use the Airport.
The area being considered for the Residents’ Permit Parking scheme includes the roads listed below:
- Maitland Road
- Mountfitchet Road
- St Mary’s Drive
- Priory Drive
- Mount Drive
- Stoneyfield Drive
- Manor Road
The scheme would be run by the North Essex Parking Partnership and operational for 5 days per week, (Mon to Fri) 10am – 2pm, excluding bank and public holidays.
Irrespective of the outcome of this consultation, and as recommended by the Parking Partnership, we are requesting the installation of red lines where parking is dangerous and obstructive, especially to the buses, refuse lorries and emergency vehicles. The proposals are shown on the map enclosed.
To participate in the survey, please either email parishcouncil@stansted.net with your views or post or deliver by hand to The Parish Council, The Mountfitchet Exchange, Crafton Green, 72 Chapel Hill, Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex, CM24 8AQ.
Please ensure that you provide your full property address in the box below (any responses received back without this information will not be considered). Please also note that only one reply per property will be considered. The closing date for responses to be received is Friday 17th June 2022.
The Parking Partnership has advised us that this scheme will only proceed with 75% support from households (1 vote per house). If the scheme does not go ahead they will not be able to offer any other options before 2026 at the earliest.
For further details about the consultation:
IMPORTANT CLARIFICATION REGARDING PARKING RESTRICTION PROPOSAL
The North Essex Parking Partnership (NEPP) are responsible for the approval, implementation and enforcement of any schemes requested. We held a meeting with the Parking Project Engineer from NEPP and advised him of the issues raised by residents and asked him what options were available to solve them. In conclusion, the only scheme they felt would address residents’ issues by excluding commuters and airport parkers altogether was the Residents’ Permit Parking Scheme we are consulting on.
We discussed a 1 hour waiting restriction and below are the reasons given as to why they would not consider such a scheme:
“With the increase in home working, single yellow lines will only benefit those who are not reliant on the Highway for parking, penalising those who are unable to remove vehicles during any applicable hour(s) of operation.
We also have to consider the enforcement expectations once a scheme has been installed and we are simply not able to keep introducing restrictions and schemes which place unrealistic and unachievable expectations on the beneficiaries of intervention or our own enforcement staff.
Expecting enforcing officers to visit roads subject to one hour or similarly timed single yellow line restrictions, with other responsibilities to address, is no longer feasible or acceptable, given the other remedies available.
Permit schemes, with a minimum duration of at least 4 hours (10am-2pm), timed to inconvenience as few residents as possible and relieving the pressure on enforcing officers, are a much more appropriate measure than a single yellow line timed to disrupt the same driver behaviour (am and pm timed restriction)
Working habits have changed and there are many examples elsewhere where the presence of timed commuter single yellow lines are not effective, a further illustration that many workplaces are no longer operating 9-5, with workers embracing flexible hours which has placed pressures on current measures in place”.
The Parish Council would also like to add that the charges stated in the consultation letter are the standard charges from the NEPP for any Residents’ Parking Scheme and they are not the decision of the Parish Council and neither does the Parish Council receive any of this money. The time scale for introducing any scheme is also set by the NEPP as they are responsible for all schemes in Uttlesford, Braintree, Epping Forest, Colchester, Tendring and Harlow. From the very beginning of discussions about formal parking restrictions, District Cllrs have advised residents that should a scheme be introduced they would need to purchase a permit and that given the current cost of living crisis where household budgets are under pressure, this needs to be considered carefully as part of their decision-making process.
