Elections

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Question 26 - we asked:

All-day free parking by commuters on residential streets increases traffic on already congested roads. This has an impact on cycle safety. Many times cars are parked on pavements or across dropped kerbs, making access difficult for people with disabilities or pushing prams. How would you solve this problem?

We asked this question in these 3 wards: Petersfield, Romsey, West Chesterton.

12 of the 12 candidates (100%) who were asked this question responded as below.

Those candidate(s) which were elected are highlighted.

Mike HARFORD
(Conservative Party)

I am very strong on this. I used to live in Kensington where parking is very restricted between residents and paid parking. I would have this in all areas in Cambridge. Off Mill Road London commuters park there to avoid paying at the station. Parking on pavements is a difficult one to prevent. It is reasonable for people who live in the area to have space for a car.i In the same way I support your idea to have one space in every street for cycles. Unfortunately the area was not built for cars. However on a positive note in the future car ownership will seriously reduce due to new motorised technology so in time all will gradually get better.

Martin KEEGAN
(Conservative Party)

Improve enforcement, both publicly through the council's staff and privately.

Simon LEE
(Conservative Party)

I'm in favour of residential parking with controlled hours, my wife however is not. I understand her argument by allowing people to use the shops and get to work as parking and public transport is expensive. My street is used as a dumping ground for cars as its free to park and often they are badly parked cars. most people heading to the station. We need controlled hours parking enforced by traffic wardens or camera or both.
Also helps if people take bins in and don't leave them out all week. Its impossible to walk down the footpaths.

Virgil IERUBINO
(Green Party)

This is a tough issue with no perfect solution. I would favour limiting street parking city-wide.

Shayne MITCHELL
(Green Party)

I loathe parking on pavements. It impedes or blocks progress for pedestrians, is ugly and dangerous (cars driving on and off pavements, often some distance, fast, along the pavement), and trashes our beautiful paving stones, where they survive. It also gives out the clear message that cars are more important.

We need a system like London, where pavement parking has been illegal for decades. (Government has just announced proposal to gather evidence on possibility of extending London system to rest of country - great.)

What is particularly objectionable and dangerous is the officially condoned and sanctioned pavement parking in Romsey, which makes using the pavements difficult to use for everyone, and impossible if you have a buggy/wheelchairs. It needs to be gradually removed, changing the parking back to one side only, as it was until quite recently.

In West Chesterton, the official pavement parking on Milton Road pavement, from Mitcham's Corner to the roundabout, created some six (?) or so years ago, is crazy. In places it makes the pavement about a foot wide (east side near roundabout). It blocks visibility. It looks hideous. It is dangerous. It creates a lawless feeling, a sense that it's fine parking on the pavement anywhere. It's quite unnecessary - nearly all the houses along there have space for at least one car in the drive. (And in the odd place there isn't, since when has there been an automatic right to park outside your house?)

Residents' parking. I am not convinced by the argument that it should be introduced in order to stop commuters parking. The raison d'ĂȘtre of residents parking seems to have completely changed. The point until now was to give residents in Victorian and older streets, with no off-road parking, which were being completely taken up by commuter parking, a chance to park. It seems strange to introduce residents' parking on streets where houses have driveways or space to park one or more cars, and residents don't need to park on the street.

It also seems needlessly divisive. The people who are commuter parking might well like to live in Cambridge, and not have to drive in, but they may well have had to live outside Cambridge because houses are less expensive there. They might prefer to use public transport - but it may well not be good enough, so they have no choice but to drive.

Those of us who live in Cambridge, in the streets proposed for residents parking, are already fortunate to be able to live close to the centre, and close to bus routes/railway We probably have space to park at least one car in our driveway, and don't even need the residents parking.

It is the public highway, after all, not the private domain of those of us who live here.

Caitlin PATTERSON
(Green Party)

Across the city we would like to see more resident's parking zones being looked at with local people. Our Green councillor in Market has been trying to ensure the council promotes more car clubs which would be a good way of reducing the volumes of parked cars and introducing more electric vehicles. I would also like there to be more cycle parking on street for residents and would explore this with local people.

Dave BAIGENT
(Labour Party)

Resident parking is a first step and this must be put in place as soon as possible. I have been a strongly supportive member of the Joint Area Committee that will be implementing this scheme.

Clare KING
(Labour Party)

I'd like to see a wider use of the sort of verge/pavement parking ban which King's Hedges city/county councillors have used in several places across the ward - most recently in King's Hedges Road and Ramsden Square because it has proven very effective at reducing pavement and verge parking and it's not expensive to implement.

On resident parking schemes I don't believe these can be imposed on neighbourhoods and they must be decided by those who live there. I'd like to see the County Council be more flexible and open to considering variations on proposals than they appear to have been so far.

Ann SINNOTT
(Labour Party)

The remaining roads in the JA part of Petersfield, which are not currently in the existing RPZ, are due to be brought within that RPZ in the near future, so incoming commuters will no longer be able to avail of free parking in the area, leading to a reduction in traffic.

Joshua BLANCHARD LEWIS
(Liberal Democrat)

The side streets around Mill Road and Coldham's Lane are a long-term issue, and affect a number of families with young children and disabilities who I know. I believe significant changes will need to be made to resolve this in the longer term, but at the moment the biggest impact for cycling would be greater clarity and signposting for the one-way/two-way cycle roads, which I have seen causing confrontations between drivers and cyclists.

Sarah BROWN
(Liberal Democrat)

There is almost nowhere in Petersfield where parking is available all day to someone who isn't part of a residents' parking scheme. Regardless, otherwise fit and healthy adults should not be commuting into the city by car. I am open to experiments such as congestion charging, or the further use of residents' parking schemes, but this has to accompany improvements in public transport, and that doesn't just include buses. Cambridge is overdue a proper fixed-infrastructure public transport system, such as light rail, and I would hold the Cambridgeshire Mayor's feet to the flames over this. The money is there, the political will needs to be found.

Jamie DALZELL
(Liberal Democrat)

Where necessary, residents-only parking can effectively reduce commuter parking and help residents. There are a number of resident only parking zones being proposed in West Chesterton and I have been helping our local County Councillor in consulting with local residents to ensure that the plans will work before moving into formal consultation.

However, so far these schemes have been approached in a piecemeal way without obvious reference to other projects or in anticipating future needs. For example, Herbert and George Street are very narrow and yet have somehow ended up at a narrow corner of a zone (when such streets are more easily managed by being central to a zone). This then creates delays and issues in implementing restrictions, even when many residents are keen to reduce parking in the area.

A clearer overall strategy for consulting upon and implementing parking restrictions is needed in order to ensure such schemes are designed effectively and flexibly and have sufficient support to be implemented.

Camcycle is a non-partisan body. All candidates are given an equal opportunity to submit their views. Information published by Camcycle (Cambridge Cycling Campaign), The Bike Depot, 140 Cowley Road, Cambridge, CB4 0DL.