Waiting restrictions on Hill Street to resolve parking issue

Parking surrouding Hill Street is affecting local businesses

Waiting restricting will soon be in force on Hill Street.

Members of the Rochdale Township Action and Resources Committee decided on Thursday (30 October) that they will go ahead with the restrictions following an appeal by local businesses whose trade is being badly affected by cars parking all day.

Jan Walker, owner of Castle Cafe, explained she may have to close because her customers have nowhere to park so they aren’t going to the café.

At the meeting, attended by Jan Walker, the council agreed to go ahead with a waiting restricted area and to meet with local business owners in the area next week to discuss the plans further.

Speaking to Rochdale Online about the decision Jan said: “I am very pleased. The meeting went really well and we were told that they have been approved funding to go ahead and do something about the issue.”

Parking in the area started to become an issue for Jan and other businesses in the area after Number One Riverside was built. Jan believes that council workers are using the street to park on so they don’t have to pay for parking.

“The council showed some pictures of the area but what they showed looked like parking on a Sunday afternoon. I then showed them all of my pictures from throughout the week and they showed the real scale of the issue. The committee soon agreed that there was a problem,” said Jan.

Mark Hardman, Township and Governance Manager at Rochdale Council, said: “After the parking issues on Hill Street were raised with us last week, our committee quickly took the decision to fund the design of a waiting-restricted area. We will now look into ways to support these local businesses and present our plans for their comments. Any changes will or will not take place following this consultation.”

It is understood that the majority of councillors on the committee voted in favour of making the changes.

http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/92147/council-workers-parking-outside-of-business-could-bankrupt-me-says-business-owner