The Executive Director for Economic Growth and Neighbourhood Services submitted a report on the receipt of a petition requesting the Council that the Resident Permit Parking restrictions on Palmer Park Avenue be changed to Resident Permit Parking only.  This would be in place of the current restrictions that allowed visitor (non-permitted) parking for up to two hours between 8.00 am and 8.00 pm. 

The petition read as follows:

“We the undersigned are concerned about our ability to park near our homes due to the existing residents parking scheme in operation in our road.  As a narrow one-way road parking is only permitted on one side of the road and our problem is that we can return home only to find there is nowhere for us to park.  This can be particularly difficult for families with small children, elderly or infirm residents and others returning home with the weeks shopping.

The existing arrangement which has been in place for several years allows non-residents to park for up to 2 hours which we believe is the cause of our difficulties.  We would like to see the scheme altered to remove this 2 hour option for non-residents, so it becomes a ‘resident only’ scheme.

We would ask that the scheme could be reviewed to help alleviate our situation.”

The report stated that the petition contained 72 signatures and explained that the restrictions in Palmer Park Avenue had been in place for many years and permitted up to two hours of parking, free of charge and without the need to display a permit, between 8.00 am and 8.00 pm daily.  At all other times the vehicle had to have a valid zone 14R parking permit.  Palmer Park sat within the same parking zone as its surrounding streets, which were introduced as part of the East Reading Resident permit parking scheme.  This scheme had been introduced with a combination of restrictions, which included permit parking only in some streets and others enabling daytime limited parking.  This combination had been intended to be a good compromise between maximising capacity, while balancing parking flexibility for visitors.  A restriction that implemented Resident Permit Parking only would require every parked vehicle to have a valid parking permit.  Residents would need to arrange visitor permits for friends and family and tradesperson permits (or similar) in advance should they require any maintenance work on their properties.

At the invitation of the Chair, lead petitioner Amjad Tarar attended the meeting and addressed the Sub-Committee.

Resolved -

(1)     That the report be noted;

(2)     That the request be investigated and developed as part of the 2021B Waiting Restriction Review programme;

(3)     That the lead petitioner be informed accordingly.