Boulders could be used to stop bad parking in Bournemouth
Councillors claim some people will park anywhere to get as close to the sea as they can
Boulders could be added to some green spaces by next summer to stop poor parking – together with new traffic and public safety orders.
The suggestions comes after another summer of visitors to the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole area with some parking badly, often on green spaces, verges and parkland.
Cllr David Kelsey said he would welcome boulders on the open spaces at the West Cliff, Bournemouth, where he lives, after seeing the area being used as an unofficial campsite in the warmer months.
Said Cllr Bev Dunlop: “We do seem to suffer from a cohort of visitors whose behaviour is not what we are used to.
“It seems that no matter what we do some people are determined to get as close to the sea as they can.”
Transport portfolio holder Cllr Mike Greene said he would like to see the visitor app’ modified because it was often the case that visitors were trying to get to full car parks close to local beaches when other, a short distance away, had spaces.
“It ends up with people parking where they shouldn’t be,” he said.
Councillors were told that, in many cases, parking off the road was not illegal and for those pitching tents on the beach and elsewhere there was little which could be done at the moment to stop it – with no action generally possible if people were sleeping inside, or if a tent was not closed up.
An overview and scrutiny committee was told that new Public Spaces Protection Orders are being considered to tackle all the ongoing problems, which will lead to a consultation exercise on the ideas.
It heard that, since Covid, the area had found itself dealing with ‘new behaviours’ from many visitors who simply ignored many rules in their rush to get to a local beach.
Councillors were told that parking fines often had little effect with 4-5 people in a car taking the view that forking out a few pounds each to pay a fine was good value for money, compared to car park charges for the day.
But despite the problems the meeting heard that this year’s “seasonal response” had been better than previous years, especially 2020, when people flocked to the area with many of the hotels and other accommodation still closed.
Seafront officer Kelly Ansell said that the April to September operation, co-ordinate by a multi-agency control room, had coped exceptionally well although the resorts had not seen the peaks of the previous two years.
She said that the plan would be ‘tweaked’ before next year but this year’s operation had produced much positive feedback, including how safe visitors felt, and how other councils had come to the area to learn from the BCP operation.
“We should be very proud of it,” he said.