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Addressing Sheerstock Parking

by A Concerned Resident – 21st July 2014
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The following is a letter sent this week to the Clerk of Haddenham Parish Council, written by a resident of Sheerstock in relation to the long-term parking problem caused by rail commuters who wish to avoid paying for partaking at the station.

I have carefully read the parking toolkit brochure and looked at all the options.

I have to say that the first thing to stress is that moving the problem down the road might seem to be an extreme measure but the residents in Sheerstock / upper Thame Road have had to live with this problem for many years and it will only get worse whilst nothing is done about it.

I have looked at other parking solutions in other areas including London near tube stations – even in areas where people have garages and a driveway, their parking authority allowed them to have on street residents parking bays where the residents paid a reasonable annual fee – nett result was that parking problems have been resolved with no illegal parking.

Has HPC looked at the parking areas around the nearby Chiltern Rail stations at say Bicester North, High Wycombe, Princes Risborough where in certain cases CR have built extended car parking facilities to cover the increasing use of the CR line into London.

Our local problem is not only caused by rail commuters into London – it is now increasingly being used by office workers on the Thame Road sites.

I understand that it also seems that "commuters" also appear to be using roads off the Thame Road as well as the Parade shopping area, doctors surgery car park, Townside, opposite the House of Spice etc, etc.

With the village plans to have more housing on the Willis Road land as well as the airfield with a possible additional 350-400 houses involved, the problem will only get worse UNLESS WE RESOLVE IT NOW.

To do nothing is NOT an option.

Looking at all the options in the parking toolkit, many of them would not solve our current problem because we can already see that some commuters are sneaking onto parking areas on the new Pegasus Way housing estate as well as parking on the grass verges on Pegasus Way where the current tradesmen working on those new houses park their cars and for the tradesmen that is perfectly understandable because they obviously cannot park their vehicles within that housing estate whilst delivery lorries need full access to make their deliveries of building materials – once they have finished the houses, will that grass verge area become another illegal parking area?

Once all the residents returns are received by HPC, I firmly believe that the council needs to set up a sub-committee with a couple of HPC members plus a small group of Sheerstock residents plus even a few residents from other affected areas of the village to sit down and agree a final solution to our problem for submission to Bucks County Council.

HPC has funds in its bank account to make a significant contribution towards any BCC costs and I understand that Chiltern Rail has also offered to make a contribution towards those costs.

When we had the extraordinary parish council meeting in January 2013,of over 70 residents who attended, the great majority then voted to opt for the residents parking areas as the preferred solution to the problem.

Over 18 months later, we are no further forward despite being told by HPC then that any solution would take up to 2 years to implement when submitted to BCC.

The last 18 months have therefore been a total waste of time for residents with no positive urgent action being taken by HPC. Many residents that I have spoken to have stated that they contacted Mrs Dudley on many occasions but either failed to receive a response or the response was a typical "we are waiting for somebody to get back to us"

Double yellow lines would not work for us as it would mean a regular visit from some parking attendant – all the other suggested options would also not be a solution for our area of Haddenham. As the village expands over the next 5-10 years, the current parking problem has to be resolved NOW otherwise it will only get worse.

I believe that the solution for the parking problems in the Sheerstock area is for RESIDENTS ONLY PARKING PERMITS with the annual charge being kept to a reasonable amount.

I look forward to your response in due course.

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