Accidents are still happening in the Hedon Market Place despite the re-design of the parking area into diagonal bays to facilitate more careful reserve parking. The claim was made by resident Carol Hunter at the Hedon Town Council’s public participation session last Thursday.
The reverse parking scheme was put in place in October 2019 in response to reported accidents involving cars and/or pedestrians in the Hedon Market Place. The Hedon Town Council had objected to the scheme. Designers, the East Riding of Yorkshire Council (ERYC), had promised a six-month review of it.
At the public participation meeting, in a question sent in writing prior to the meeting, Carol had asked for news of the overdue review of the scheme. She said that a petition with over 1,000 signatures had been collected which calls for the parking bays to be restored to the way they were before. And CCTV footage showed accidents were still happening.
In response, Councillor Steve Gallant expressed disappointment that the promised six-month review of the scheme had never happened, probably due to the coronavirus outbreak. “As far as the East Riding was concerned there had been no accidents since the scheme had been implemented,” he said. The Town Clerk confirmed that an email had been received by the ERYC and their data showed there had been no collisions since the scheme was put in place. Councillor Gallant suggested that “now was a good time for the petition collected by residents to be sent to the ERYC and any camera footage of accidents and mishaps ought to be sent too”.
Carol in her written question also suggested that railings around the parking area might deter pedestrians from cutting across and walking on the road. Railings outside the Co-op as well may stop drivers from parking there which in turn disrupts the reverse parking. The council agreed to put the feasibility of railings on the next Property Committee agenda. The Town Clerk pointed out there would be difficulties with railings outside the Co-op because of the location of the public bus stop.
I see the white range rover doesn’t think the reversing into the bay apples to him nor does he seem to care how many parking spaces hes taking up!
Hi Folks – Just a reminder about using FULL NAMES, please. Will not be accepting any more half-names. We want to create a sense of community on here and the idea that you are speaking with your neighbours.
This reverse parking does not have any benefits and needs to be revised – hopefully going back to how it was. Decisions should be made by the people who live in the area.
Of course it has benefits, it is far easier to reverse into a bay at an angle and it is FAR safer to drive out into traffic than to reverse out and have to be aware of traffic on the road and pedestrians. As a previous post said, if you can’t reverse into parking space then some further tuition may be needed.
Fully agree. Reducing the number of parking spaces and setting the new ones at a redictulace angle, which has caused numerous incidences, crashes and made people not want to use them is bonkers!!!
I couldn’t agree more with the previous comments. The fact that the bays are angles makes it easier to reverse in and easier to drive off, it makes absolutely no sense now to drive in forwards. As regards a petition with 1000 signatures, if anyone starts one for leaving things as they are then my name will definitely be on it. This change was put in place for safety reasons and as far as I can see it has fulfilled it’s brief.
I cannot beleive why anyone would object to the redesign of the parking bays, its safer to reverse into a parking bay than reverse into traffic. Even though there are plenty of signs plus common sense its a no-brainer that you should reverse park into the bays but I noticed some idiots park forward into the bays re your photo, these car drivers shouldnt be allowed on the road. As for accidents with pedestrians, why blame the car driver when a pedestrian decides to walk into the road behind a reversing vehicle. I think another issue that should be addressed instead of the bays is the drivers who park on the on the double yellow lines accross the road to the bays.
We are in the village often either on foot or in our car…different times and days…not once have we seen an accident since the redesign. It is awkward to park but it makes you think about how to go about entering and leaving the area so not as mindless. I can not see why Hedon needs to change when it is clearly working. It is unrealistic to expect never an accident.