Residents driven crazy by inconsiderate commuters (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Residents driven crazy by inconsiderate commuters

1:10pm Saturday 12th December 2009 in News By Chris Gregory

COMMUTERS are causing parking misery by using residential roads in Hook rather than the train station car park, a meeting heard.

The problem in Raven Road is so bad that residents often cannot get into their driveways and motorists have to drive on the pavement to pass parked cars.

A group of 12 residents raised the issue at Hook Parish Council, complaining about parking in the road – a cul-de-sac just off Station Road.

Raven Road resident Stephen Hussey told the meeting that the problem had become worse in the past two years.

He said: “People use our road free of charge to commute to various parts of the country to do their jobs. But what they do not seem to worry about is the people who live there.

“It is so bad that I have a job to park there myself.”

Another resident, Jean Shaw, told the meeting she had seen the same commuters park in her road every morning.

She added: “One lady sits in her car, has her breakfast, combs her hair and then goes to the station and is gone for 10 hours.”

The residents said that a permit scheme, restricting street parking to the people who live there, might solve the problem.

Councillor Antony Hunter said the parish council had worked with Hampshire County Council and Hart District Council for the past three years to combat parking problems in the village.

He added: “However I do not think that a residents’ parking scheme will work with this, because it just moves the parking somewhere else.

“If you move the problem it probably does not solve anything.”

The meeting heard that the recession and the increased population at the village’s infant and junior schools had led to more people trying to find on-street parking.

Cllr Martin Whittaker, chairman of Hook Parish Council, said that the residents needed to lobby the district council, as the parish council did not have responsibility for street parking.