County Councillor Sarah Whitebread has updated residents who attended the public meeting in December which addressed parking issues in the Kite. Here is what she has said:

Dear all,

Thank you for attending the Kite area parking meeting before Christmas (and to those who could not make it, but have since contacted me with comments). I hope those of you who were there found the meeting in some way interesting/helpful.

Three things to update you on: 1) the working group 2) Parkside Place 3) The yellow lines changes.

WORKING GROUP
I would like to arrange a meeting as soon as possible for those interested in taking part in a working group to look at potential changes to the parking policy for the Kite. If you would like to be part of this can you please confirm by email, and let me know your availability for next weekend (26th/27th January) and the following weekend (2nd/3rd February). We will need to find somewhere to host us as well so if you have any suggestions please let me know.

PARKSIDE PLACE
I have now, after a great deal of chasing, received a legal opinion from one of the County Council’s lawyers. Their belief I’m afraid backs up what other council staff have told us – that because the development has been told it can have visitors permits, to withdraw them now would seem unreasonable and the Council would be liable for
damages.

I have not heard anything from the Cabinet member Tony Orgee since the meeting. (NB since writing this letter Sarah has secured a meeting with Tony Orgee.)

I think Council officers feel that the impact will not be as bad as residents fear, but if that is their view then I would like to see the evidence to back it up. I also think we need a change of policy from now on so that this can never happen again. The thing I am most annoyed about is that ward councillors were not alerted to this by council staff at a time when we could have done something about it.

I am arranging to meet with John Onslow, the head of environment services at the County Council at the earliest opportunity to discuss this and the way forward. If any residents would like to join me at that meeting please let me know.

YELLOW LINES CHANGES
We have collated all of the comments from the meeting and fed them back to Council staff. I now have an electronic copy of the plans so if you would like me to email them to you please let me know.

The next stage is for ward councillors to meet with Council staff to discuss the feedback at the meeting and make changes to the proposals, before they are formally advertised. I hope this can be done in the next few weeks.

I hope this covers everything, but if you have further comments or questions please let me know.

Best wishes,
Sarah