Residents parking at Hollingworth Lake given thumbs up

Plans for a residents-only parking scheme at Hollingworth Lake has been given the go ahead.

The move comes after several years of debate and complaint relating to parking at the Lake.  Chiefly these complaints revolved around visitors to the lake parking within the residential areas.

The Pennines Township committee made the decision to implement the permits in two of four areas put forward to the council. The Milbury Drive area and the Cleggswood Avenue area.

Residents will be issued with one permit and one visitor’s permit.

Two other proposed zones, the Bridge Bank Road and Brown Lodge Street areas were not given the go ahead. These two areas had received a high percent of objections from residents.

In the Milbury Drive area there wasn’t a single objection from 59 properties. In the Cleggswood Avenue area there were five objections from 145 properties. In the Bridgebank Road area there were 22 objections from 152 properties. In the Brown Lodge Street area there were 34 objections from 196 properties.

The Milbury Drive area consists of:

• Merlin Close for its entire length
• Milbury Drive for its entire length
• Woodheys Road for its entire length

The Cleggswood Avenue area consists of:

• Beechwood Avenue for its entire length
• Cleggswood Avenue for its entire length
• Heald Close for its entire length
• Higher Cleggswood Avenue for its entire length
• Queens View for its entire length
• Woodbank Road from its junction with Cleggswood Avenue to a point 10 metres north-west of its junction with Cleggswood Avenue

Residents raised concerns that there will not be enough permits for families and visitors, that charges would be introduced, that the issue of parking from visitors to the lake in residential areas isn’t an all year problem or 24 hour problem and that it could impact on their house price.

Forty one residents said they did not think there was a problem. The report presented to Councillors, read: “This objection contradicts the views expressed by residents complaints received in recent years. Local residents have expressed dismay at indiscriminately parked vehicles being parked along residential streets making driving along the highway difficult.”

There is likely to be no initial charge for the permits.

The report added: “A Residents’ Permit Parking Scheme is the only way to regulate parking in a residential area without penalising the residents as with other forms of parking restriction (limited waiting parking bays, for example).”