Last week I met with Surrey Highways to discuss parking issues in Oxted South. While I am a district councillor and Highways are a county council issue, many local residents contact me rather than our county councillor to deal with problems that arise.
And the issue of the moment is the consequence of the new parking restrictions on Mill Lane and Hallsland Way. The route cause of the problem is that there is not enough commuter parking for Hurst Green station and once the car park gets full the cars have to go somewhere. The problem is where! Mill lane was very dangerous as drivers could not see anything approaching (people or cars) and for the schoolchildren at Moorhouse school and other pedestrians walking on the road meant taking your life in your hands. So moving it anywhere else had to be an improvement.
However, where they have moved to is no better. So various solutions are being considered (against the backdrop of very little money to doing anything at all). I hope something can be put in place by the autumn,but what we really need to do is improve the infrastructure so we are not just dealing with symptoms but the cause and that unfortunately is likely to take much much longer to solve.I yearn for the day where local people will have the power (including the say over how their money is spent) to drive this type of prioity, but until then we will have to fight against the tide to get something in place.
