This session is limited to 30 minutes.
1. From Mrs M Lawes to Councillor Godfrey, Cabinet Member for Housing, Transport and Special Projects
New measures were taken in early June to stop all BBQ’s in the Coastal Park. These measures included larger bins, increased parking charges at Radnor Cliff Road and coastal parking area. There were also signs indicating to drivers to use Folkestone end of Coastal Park. Parking has been seriously reduced at Folkestone end due to the Seafront Development. This has led to serious overcrowding. People parking over resident driveways, blocking cars in on residential roads complete gridlock for months in Tram Road. Why was this decision taken to send traffic to Folkestone end when traffic already caused serious problems to residents, ruining local resident’s enjoyment of the seafront?
Minutes:
1. From Mrs M Lawes to Councillor Godfrey, Cabinet Member for Housing, Transport and Special Projects
New measures were taken in early June to stop all BBQ’s in the Coastal Park. These measures included larger bins, increased parking charges at Radnor Cliff Road and coastal parking area. There were also signs indicating to drivers to use Folkestone end of Coastal Park. Parking has been seriously reduced at Folkestone end due to the Seafront Development. This has led to serious overcrowding. People parking over resident driveways, blocking cars in on residential roads complete gridlock for months in Tram Road. Why was this decision taken to send traffic to Folkestone end when traffic already caused serious problems to residents, ruining local resident’s enjoyment of the seafront?
ANSWER:
Thank you Mrs Lawes for your question.
We are aware that this summer has been exceptionally busy in all seafront locations, so the increased traffic/parking in Folkestone should not be solely attributed to the Coastal Park traffic diversion. Many other coastal towns have also reported similar challenges.
There have been traffic/parking issues on roads leading to the Coastal Park which have grown over the past few years. It is a fact that the location of the Coastal Park and nature of the roads leading to it make it difficult for cars and emergency vehicles to access/leave the facility during periods of high demand.
The Folkestone Harbour end has wider roads, and even with the seafront development, it has far more parking facilities for visitors. To further alleviate the situations, FHDC made arrangements with the Folkestone Harbour Company to open up their large car park on sunny days when high demand for parking was expected. This helped to reduce the parking congestion on the roads.
Officers are currently working on the possible introduction of parking controls in the Tram Road area, which should help alleviate the parking difficulties local residents are experiencing. However, there will be sunny weekends when the attractions of Folkestone to outside visitors will inevitably create difficulties from time to time.
The Coastal Park, which is an exceptional asset in the district, witnessed an unprecedented amount of visitors this summer due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The council undertook a considerable amount of work to update rules, change behaviours and suitably enforce these. One of the predominant issues was the route into the coastal park via Radnor Cliff. Despite long queues people still attempted to enter and this led to a blocking off of the road. Emergency services expressed their concern and the decision was made to advertise the less well known (to visitors of the coastal park) Folkestone end car parks. Despite an increase in traffic being sent to the Folkestone end, roads are wider and more suitable to larger volumes. This coincided with working with the harbour company to open their large car parks during peak times to alleviate the numbers.
We are aware that residents of the Folkestone end did witness an increase in unacceptable behaviour. To help ease matters in the long run, we are running a public consultation regarding parking in the affected areas to ensure we do not have a repeat of this next peak season.