Furious residents in a York street will have their parking taken away to make room for cycle lanes as part of the York Station Gateway scheme.
Cllr Claire Douglas, the leader of the City of York Council, approved the removal of Queen Street residents’ parking on safety grounds to permit the installation of segregated cycle lanes and a wider pedestrian footway on Thursday, October 19.
However, those living at Queen Street are up in arms at the decision.
One resident, Peter Chilman, said: “The restrictions will severely affect the ability to use my car, to receive deliveries and to engage tradespeople to work on my house.”
He added: “A house with restricted vehicular access is not an attractive proposition as a permanent home.
“It’s therefore likely that Queen Street will change from a small vibrant community of long-term residents into a strip of short-term holiday lettings, thus further reducing the stock of family-friendly residences in central York.”
Virginia Ledley has lived on Queen Street for 34 years with her husband Rob and daughter Georgina.
She said: “In my own household disability has become a recent concern and if this is enacted we too will have to look at how we continue to live on Queen Street.”
‘Not room for everything’
Alternative parking is set to be made available in Toft Green, but residents worry it is not close enough.
Stuart Allen said: “The parking situation is going to be detrimental to me.”
He added: “There’s absolutely no way I am going to be able to walk around to there [Toft Green].
Mr Allen, who is disabled, said: “My disability is only going to get worse and I’ll need carers at some point so they need a place to come to help me out.”
Mark Harris said: “Delivery drivers, people from Amazon, takeaways, whatever – they’re still going to stop on those roads.
“Now what that actually means is an unplanned hazard is far more dangerous than a planned one.”
He continued to say: “Throughout the UK there’s an average of 13 per cent put on included for on and off street parking, [so] removing that is having a detrimental financial effect for every householder in that street.”
James Gilchrist, director of environment transport and planning, said: “The plan did aim to keep every use there if possible so our aspiration was absolutely to maintain residents’ parking.”
However, he added: “But the preferred solution went to a safety audit and that concluded that we should remove the parking because there was a conflict between the segregated cycle route and the residents parking.”
Mr Gilchrist said: “There’s just not room for everything and that’s part of the challenge that faces us,” adding: “Walking and cycling are prioritised over buses and then that over cars.”
Residents will be able to load and unload on double yellow lines except between 8am and 9.15am, as well as between 4pm and 6pm.
Blue badge holders can park on double yellow lines for three hours, tradespeople can get special permits and arrangements can be made for emergency workers and there is a free permit offered for carers.
Cllr Claire Douglas: “This is very difficult but I do think we need to move ahead with the recommendations as outlined and with the mitigations that have been offered.”