UPDATED 18.02.21

Parking Victory For Residents

Local residents of the Clarion Gate development will have seen a new addition to the street scene recently – parking enforcement signage.

This signals the latest development in what has been a longstanding problem on the estate, due to the effect of parking demand for Hamptons exceeding the availability of the car park spaces at the centre. Read more on this here and here.

Long suffering residents (and indeed the staff of Hamptons) will recall frequent disputes regarding users of the centre parking on estate roads and more notably, the public open space that adjoins the centre. This has been a pre-existing problem for many years, and concerns have increased upon hearing the initial proposals of CMS to use Hamptons as a place of worship that can “easily accommodate 1000 worshippers”.

The development also suffers from poor estate road design, with some road widths less than that required by regulations for emergency vehicle access. Read more on this here

The open space on Tydemans formed part of the conditions of planning for approval of the residential development. It is not owned by Hamptons, nor has it ever been since the sale of the land by BAE Systems to developers Crest Nicholson. It’s previous historic use as parking for the leisure centre was unauthorised, and unenforced…. until now.

CMS can hardly claim they believed it to be their land when they purchased the business. After all, who spends £2.35m without examining the Land Registry deeds (which in fact they included on promotional literature for the purchase).

Residents of the Clarion Gate development will therefore be delighted to hear that a parking enforcement company, UK Car Park Management, has been appointed by the estate management company to provide 24/7 parking enforcement to the estates privately owned areas – which includes the landscaped areas that form the public open spaces.

Anyone now found to be parking on these areas will be subject to a £100 fine.

Of course, restricting the use of the open space for parking will not reduce the demand for parking at Hamptons. With CMS now promoting all previous uses of the building will continue (along with the parking requirements that it attracts) and now alongside additional use for worship, this will merely push the problem further out to adjacent residential roads.

But at least the residents of Clarion Gate can now reclaim and enjoy the open space as they are entitled to do so.

RESIDENTS CAN REPORT ILLEGALLY PARKED CARS BY CALLING 0345 4635050.

UPDATE 18/02/21

The signs have been removed temporarily, following a complaint from the council that they were attached to poles that were “council property”. We wonder who alerted the council ?

They will be reinstalled very soon on new poles, on land owned by Clarion Gate.

AO

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