Yarm parking tax promises chaos...

Last Thursday, Stockton Council's Labour / Ingleby Barwick 'independents' coalition agreed to push ahead with their ill-conceived plans to impose their unwanted parking tax in Yarm.

Stockton Council would have us believe that they are doing this for the benefit of Yarm, both by addressing the congestion problems through Yarm High Street and by boosting visitor numbers thereby benefitting trade.  Yes, you read that right - Stockton Council believe that by taxing visitors to the town, more will want to come. Presumably in the same way as increasing rail fares persuades more of us to travel by train...

At least one Labour politician was sufficiently honest/careless to announce the real reason for the Council's plans...

But all this has been said before.  Were the risks to businesses on the High Street not sufficiently obvious as to constitute common sense, the press coverage has been considerable.

One area that has been less well publicised is the effect that the parking tax will have on residents living in the streets and wynds in close proximity to the High Street.

Whilst the eye was inevitably drawn to the paragraphs relating directly to charging in the report presented to cabinet last Thursday, there is one towards the end of the report which merits closer scrutiny:

"There will be a need to bring forward a range of parking restrictions to address existing indiscriminate parking and to manage the inevitable displacement that will occur as a result of introducing charging".

In other words, at the same time as implementing their parking tax Stockton Council intend to take Yarm back to the future with the reintroduction of their 2010/11 plans to swathe large parts of the town with double yellow lines and other parking restrictions, particularly along West Street.

There is no denying that there is ostensibly a need for some additional restrictions along West Street - anybody familiar with the area will be aware of the selfish and downright dangerous actions of some motorists, particularly those parking under the viaduct at the Bentley Wynd end of West Street - but only a fool would neither anticipate nor fear the promised proposals being virtually a carbon copy of the plans kicked into the long grass by the Council in 2011.

Not only will we see the "inevitable displacement" of vehicles as a direct consequence of the parking tax (and not just from the High Street - charging is also intended for the two SBC car parks, at The Old Market and Castle Dyke Wynd), but if the promised parking restrictions prove to be as draconian as intended previously, further displacement of vehicles from West Street, Bridge Street, and others is guaranteed.

There is only one word to describe the cumulative impact of these hair-brained proposals - chaos.

Yarm Town Council will inevitably lead the way in co-ordinating the protests at these proposals, as done so admirably by Councillor Jason Hadlow in the run-up to 2011's successful Appeals & Complaints Committee meeting.

However, without elections to the Borough Council due within a matter of weeks of the anticipated meetings this time around to focus the minds of Labour councillors (as in 2011), I fear the worst.