Parking Meeting Fails to Impress

HENLEY residents got the first look at proposals for a review of parking provision in the town on Monday evening. But the proposals themselves - far from contentious, appearing more of a tidy up of parking in line with legislation than a radical shake-upwere overshadowed by the format chosen for the "meeting".

Locals had received flyers through their doors from the parish clerk for Beaudesert and Henley Joint Parish Council prior to the event at the Baptist Church Hall inviting them to a "public meeting" to "discuss" and "consult" on the parking review. So there was confusion and frustration all round from the 35 or so residents who piled into the hall, making a mockery of the two lines of chairs set out for them to sit on, when the parish council chairman Cllr Les Goodman stood up to announce that this was not a public meeting and those assembled were to individually approach the two Warwickshire County Council officers in attendance to ask them any questions. There was also a chance to peruse the plans and fill in a feedback form.

This was a far cry from the discussion and consultation residents had expected. Several residents told the Herald they had been envisioning a formal presentation from the county council followed by a chance to ask questions from the floor. Others said it had been "a complete waste of their time".

A number of residents, on hearing the plans for the session, swiftly made their exit. Amongst their number was High Street resident Ruth Heirst. She said she was "very unsatisfied" about the arrangements as she had been led to believe this was to be a proper meeting.

"The plans refer to where I live and I wanted to know what they wanted to do about things," she added before making for the door.

Phil Mitton, traffic management engineer at the county council, said he had not been part of the planning of the event so he could not comment on the set-up of the evening. However, he added in support of the execution of the event that there were a lot of individual schemes included in the proposals and it had not been known who would be coming along and which bits would be of interest to the majority.

Cllr Goodman said he had never expected it to be an open meeting. He added that the parish council could have done nothing and left it up to the county council. He did accept that the flier, sent out by the parish clerk, could have been misleading.

Jane Williams, traffic project engineer for the county council, explained that Monday evening's session was the stage before the official consultation to gauge people's opinion before the fmal proposals were drawn up. The initial proposals, she told the Herald, involve a tidy up of parking across the town, adding no waiting areas on roads including Warwick Road, High Street and Brook End Drive and extending yellow lines on dangerous comers, such as on Alne Close, in line with parking legislation. Any loss ' of parking spaces through these measures would be replaced like-for-like with parking spaces elsewhere, with the town actually benefiting in the end from two extra disabled parking spaces and up to eight more regular parking spaces.

Report by Philippa Prankard - Stratford Herald - 20th Augut 2009