As Northiam residents began to celebrate the Christmas season, the topic of conversation has been less than joyous, as news of an audacious money-grab by Rother District Council began to circulate.
Buried in Appendix A in Rother District Council’s budget plan for 2025 / 6 is the proposal to start charging for car parking in village car parks. Northiam residents were appalled to discover that RDC consider it feasible for people to pay £1.10 through a RingGo app in order to pop into the surgery to pick up a prescription.
RDC was accused of showing as little understanding of rural life as central government by targeting the car park in Northiam, which serves the surgery, dentist, church, school and visitors to the village. Whilst a charge of £1.10 for 4 hours may sound very reasonable to someone living in or visiting a busy town, a village car park is used to visit the surgery, attend a church service or funeral, drop off and collect schoolchildren safely – activities which may happen more than once a day, and last only a few minutes.
As one resident put it: “We have a high proportion of elderly residents, and they are the most likely to need to drive to see the doctor, and the least likely to want to use phone apps – or have the manual dexterity to do so.”
With increasing traffic on the A28 through the village, as evidenced by the weaknesses developing in Newenden bridge, parents of schoolchildren have been urged to use the car park to avoid congestion at school time – and these people would now be expected to pay £11 a week for the privilege.
Traffic already has to idle to get past parked cars. With a possible increase of 40 cars parking along the road, traffic will come to a standstill, with all the associated additional pollution.
Residents from surrounding villages, Beckley, Broad Oak and Brede, have also expressed their dismay, as they have no alternative but to drive to Northiam surgery.
A spokesperson for Rother District Council said: “Rother District Council, like councils across the country, is facing significant pressures as costs and demand increases and funding from Central Government reduces.
“We have some difficult choices to make as we continue to take steps to address the financial shortfall the council is facing.
“To raise more income to help fill our funding gap, we are currently consulting on proposals to add charges to our car parks where there is currently not a charge. However, no decisions will be made before the responses to the consultation have been received and we encourage people to have their say on the proposals by completing the consultation survey – https://www.smartsurvey.co.uk/s/budget2025/.
“A decision on the proposals will be made by full council when it sets the budget in February 2025.”
I live in Bexhill, go to St Peters Church in the Old Town, my doctor practice is next to the church. It is £2.60 for the 2 hours parking needed to attend morning service. IF I am lucky enough to get a doctor appointment, vaccine etc that will cost £1.30. Please don’t try to give the impression that we ‘townies’ are somehow getting away with better or cheaper than rural areas. We all would like nicely maintained free car parks. Councils everywhere are having to face hard choices.
A similar situation in Tenterden with the surgery car park. However, if you are visiting the surgery for an appointment it is necessary to get a parking ticket from the machine, but this is free and hopefully covers the time of your appointment! If the council insists on introducing these charges they will see sense and work with Northiam Surgery to follow a similar policy.
I think this is an absurd idea. The car park at Northiam is used by patients at both the GP and dental practices, church goers, parents picking up and dropping off children at the school and customers using the fabulous DIY and bakery stores. All of these will be affected by the introduction of charges. Also, where are those who work at all of the above businesses supposed to park? The road is hazardous and dangerous already without having a line of cars parked along Main Street.
I do hope residents of both NORTHIAM and BREDE will respond to Rother DC in respect of possible car park charges to the facility that is by the doctors surgery at Northiam. On a daily basis I suspect at least 80 or so people visiting, add the number of staff, it must be about 100 people. People from Brede may also visit the Northiam surgery. So, one can only imagine those vehicles parked in the close roads.
The Government in their proposals say treatment and care should come before going to hospitals, THAT is what our wonderful local surgeries do. Please support these surgeries by writing to Rother DC, Ian Jenkins.
It seems quite ludicrous to introduce a charge to park at the doctors surgery if this will also need policing by an attendant and the salary to pay for one.
I frequently stop to collect monthly prescriptions or attend blood tests en route to other destinations and object to paying £1.10 for a brief use of the car park. Negotiating the parked vehicles on Main Road is already hazardous and there will be a lot more risk to pedestrians if patients cannot park in the car park. I strongly object to this proposal
I appreciate that local councils are having considerable problems in balancing their budgets, but it seems with Rother that they have a habit of taking a lot and providing very little in return, which in turn tends to alienate the local population. Council taxes in rural areas tend to be in the upper bands, so surely it is reasonable that payment of such taxes should produce a little more in the way of local benefit than a weekly visit from the refuse collector?
District and county councils have been starved of cash by successive Westminster governments. Rother has been forced to think the unthinkable and charge for rural car parks. The answer is for Northiam Parish Council to do what others have done – take over the car park. That would ensure proper local control over a local asset. Frankly Rother will find that charging just doesn’t pay it’s way. It’s been suggested that users, including patients and surgery staff, will have to use an app to pay each time. Rother will incur serious capital costs, or rely on a third party to pay for cameras, ticket machines, and chase non-payments. And paying customers could rightly expect the Council to re-surface the car park. A major capital cost to attempt to recoup £1 a time . It simply wont work.
I have already voiced my dismay at the idea of paying 1.10 every time I want to park in the surgery. As many people have already stated if you are elderly, unwell or not tech savvy how are you going to pay for this. Many of the residents who use the car par do so because to park on the road would cause even more problems and cause even more congestion in an a.ready congested village. If you have to go for multiple appointments the amount they are planning to charge mounts up. My husband and I are both pensioners and the pension we have is used for the most important things if RDC think that charging fir the car park is fair then they really have no idea what living in a rural community with a brilliant surgery is like. This may well put people off going to the surgery and that in itself is a dangerous situation. We all know that councils are strapped for cash but this seems to me to be a money making scheme that is going to affect the whole village and surrounding area