No end to parking crisis as councils turn away trucks
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Local councils continue to refuse to take responsibility for providing truck drivers with anywhere to park. David Harris reports.
A LOCAL COUNCIL has added to the parking crisis in the SouthEast of England by refusing permission fora new truck park.
East Herts District Council last week threw out a proposal to create a truck park in Bishops Stortford.The application to use an existing daytime car park in Dunmow Road as an overnight truck park was made by M&D Developments, the company which runs the local park-and-ride scheme.
David Harris. managing director of M&D, says he is very disappointed at the council's decision, but is planning to resubmit the application restricting the park to vehicles of 7.5 tonnes and below.
"It seems a pity to waste a perfectly good car park when it could be put to overnight use," he adds.
The council gave several reasons for turning down the first proposal, including the belief that trucks would affect people living nearby and that the car park would have to be equipped with floodlights.
Harris says establishing the truck park would help solve the problem of trucks parked in laybys around the town. The nearest official lorry park is at Junction 8 of the M11, but it is invariably full.
• One of the councils that has been hardest hit by the shortage of parking spaces across the country has just made things worse.
Kent County Council, which is short of some 260 spaces (CM 13 October), has closed a lay-by on the A249 at Detling, which had provided parking for 40 trucks (pictured above).