Plans to impose parking fees at the free public car park in Northiam have been abandoned after hundreds of residents expressed their anger. The 40 space car park, which serves the village’s surgery, dentist, church, and school, was on a list for new fees proposed by Rother District Council.
The decision was made on Monday February 3 when the council’s cabinet endorsed proposals for the authority’s 2025/26 budget, which will be put to a full council vote later this month.
These proposals, which include a 2.99 per cent council tax increase, were discussed by the authority’s overview and scrutiny committee.
While the scrutiny committee was supportive of the overall budget proposals, they also recommended the council abandon proposals to introduce parking fees to car parks which are currently free to use.
Speaking during the cabinet meeting, the scrutiny committee’s chairman Paul Osborne (Con) said: “There was so much negative comment from residents, especially in Northiam and Sidley compared to the potential tiny amount of income. We thought the negative publicity and the harm to the reputation of the council wasn’t worth the aggravation.”
Northiam resident Karen Ayling praised the decision. “The RDC cabinet has listened to the 850 people who responded to the proposals. Thank you to everyone in Northiam and the surrounding villages who took the trouble to respond – democracy does work! Thanks also to Cllrs Tony Biggs and Tony Ganly for fighting our corner.”
Car parks in Bexhill, Battle, Sedlescombe and Hurst Green which are currently free will also not face charges.
In considering the recommendation from overview and scrutiny, Cllr Christine Bayliss, cabinet member for regeneration and economic development, put forward a motion for the charges be dropped from the wider budget proposals.
Cllr Bayliss said: “I think we’ve listened to the consultation, we’ve listened to the public. As the economic development lead on the cabinet, I have been lobbied by businesses in places like Sidley, for example, and you can see that this would be, at this stage, a backward step.”
But this view was not shared by Liberal Democrat cabinet member Kathryn Field.
Cllr Field said: “I think there are equalities issues here. I think we should be charging for all of them or not charging for any of them; I don’t think we should be cherry picking between car parks in the district.”
However, the motion was agreed by a majority vote. The overall proposals will soon go to a full council vote for adoption.
The remaining budget proposals include a 2.99 per cent council tax increase. If implemented, this would bring Rother‘s share of the annual bill for a Band D household to £210.65 — an increase of £6.11 on the current financial year.
The initial proposals also included planned savings and income generation totalling £1.176 million. This figure had included the new car parking charges, however.
When put together, the new car parking charges were expected to generate somewhere in the region of £74,000 in new income for the council. Their removal from the budget proposals will bring the council’s total savings proposals for next year down to a little over £1.1 million.
Image Credits: Karen Ayling .