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Parking charges start Monday THE LONG-awaited and controversial pay to park scheme comes into force in Eastbourne town centre and along the seafront on Monday morning. State of the art pay and display machines will be switched on and shoppers, commuters, visitors and residents will all have to pay to park in controlled parking zones. Shoppers will have to pay up to �3 to park in the town centre for two hours andADVERTISEMENT 80p for up to one hour on the seafront. NCP wardens will patrol the streets and motorists who do not pay and display valid tickets, overstay in time limited bays, park in residents-only bays, flout the parking restrictions or park illegally will be issued with a �50 penalty charge notice, reduced to �25 if paid within 14 days. Parking officials at County Hall say the new scheme will end the parking free for all and tackle illegally parked cars, congestion and create on-street parking spaces for shoppers and residents. Councillor Matthew Lock, lead member for transport and environment at the county council, told the Herald, "I know this is a change for people and while they get used to the scheme we will be sensitive to this. We have done a lot of work to publicise the new parking rules and providing people adhere to the rules they won't get a ticket. "The money we generate from parking fines will go towards transport improvements in the future, so as well as making it easier for people to get spaces and reducing congestion we expect to see transport improvements from the money generated by the scheme. "More and more towns are now seeing the benefits that well-managed parking controls can bring. "They free up spaces for shoppers, make it easier for residents to park nearer their homes, and any surplus income gets ploughed back into road safety and better bus, cycling and walking facilities, which benefit everyone." Further information about how the scheme will operate and the charges and permits available is available on the county council website, www.eastsussex.gov.uk/eastbourneparking, or the parking shop in Gildredge Road. The introduction of the scheme marks the end of a long and bitter wrangle between Eastbourne Borough Council, which is vehemently opposed to pay to park, and East Sussex County County Council which has been pushing for a charging scheme to be introduced in recent years. A previous bid to bring the scheme in last October was abandoned by the county council at the 11th hour after the borough council threatened a legal challenge. Since then meters have stood idle and NCP wardens, who had been lined up to enforce the parking scheme, were only permitted to issue warning notices on vehicles which took advantage of the parking free for all. All that will change on Monday morning when the wardens will start clamping down on those who flout parking restrictions. A second stage, to ease parking problems across the whole borough of Eastbourne, will be introduced next month. From the beginning of November a civil parking enforcement scheme will be brought in, which will see motorists who park on double yellow lines, in disabled bays, on bus stops or taxi ranks, issued with �70 penalty charge notices, which drops to �35 if paid within 14 days. |
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