RESIDENTS of Frogmore Road have been supported by the town council in their bid to address parking issues in their area. Many residents attended a local town council meeting to state their case and town councillors unanimously agreed to support their idea of a residents’ parking permit scheme and recommend it to Wiltshire Council.
Residents who live in the area where Frogmore Road meets the A350 say that the space outside their homes is often being used by people who don’t live there and that a residents’ parking scheme would help alleviate the issues.
Previously, the town council said it could not lend its support to the scheme until the majority of residents were in agreement, but a meeting of the town council’s highways, planning, and development committee, held on Monday 20th February, heard that the scheme is now supported by the majority of residents.
In support of a parking permit scheme, a Frogmore Road resident wrote, “All cars parked outside our houses are from somewhere else. We have elderly people and families with babies, and we have been pushed to park all half a mile down Frogmore Road. It is currently dangerous to carry babies with other small children and shopping along that road if we are forced to park so far away.
“This road would be less dangerous if we could park nearby, and many residents are very stressed by this. Cars are constantly bumped by speeding vehicles and HGVs, but this is not part of our petition today.”
Speaking at the meeting, cllr Gordon King said, “I myself live in that area and I must say that I agree with every word that the resident has said, and I would recommend that we forward our endorsement of an appropriate scheme for residential parking to Wiltshire Council.
“It is absolutely true that there are issues with parking in that area the majority of the time and not all of the cars that park in the area actually belong to the residents who live there.
“Parked cars often get damaged or shunted by other vehicles in that road, and I am actually amazed that in all this time, no-one has either been seriously injured or killed by stepping out into that road between parked cars, into the line of speeding vehicles.”
Cllr Phillip Harcourt added, “This feels like one piece of a much larger issue for the Frogmore Road area, given the volumes and speed of the traffic that use that route.”
Cllr Mike Sutton said, “We did take this forward to the Area Board of Wiltshire Council for there to be a comprehensive review of the area, that would look at all the things cllr King has mentioned, as well as lorries/HGVs hurtling off the A350 down the road, and white vans parking in the way. This will all form as part of a wider review and again, this council is in the hands of Wiltshire Council to come up with something.”
The scheme will now be looked at by the local highways and footways improvement group of Wiltshire Council who will look at the underlying traffic orders that may need to be amended before a residents’ parking scheme can be introduced.
