Parking in Zone 15 ‘main worry’ for disabled residents

A disabled couple living in Cheltenham's^[1] new parking Zone 15 said the new regulations have made it harder for them to park near their home causing them dread using their car and going outside. They told GloucestershireLive that, as a result, "parking has now become a main worry of ours, which is amazing when we already have so many".

Clint Pearce, who lives on Berkeley Street and is registered blind, said that parking for him and his also-disabled partner was never easy, but since more than 50 roads in the town^[2] became permit-only earlier this month, it has become a "nightmare". The Cheltenham pair now dread moving their car, as it would mean 24 hours of playing "musical cars" until they can get a spot.

For safety and accessibility reasons, Clint and his partner would park on a nearby street which most of the time had adequate spaces, but since all of the roads in the zone^[3] have been marked into bays, finding a suitable spot has become a rare occurence. Now, the pair have to use their blue badges to park in a three-hour bay, while trying to keep an eye out for somewhere to leave their vehicle.

Speaking to GloucestershireLive, Clint described how the parking problems were taking over their daily lives. He said: "What we tend to have to do now when we get home is park on single yellow lines near to where we live using our blue badges. Then having to go out later or early the next morning just to move, so then we pay to park."

This is then repeated by the couple until they can find an appropriate space, which can mean spending a full day "playing musical cars". The new Zone 15 parking rules mean that anyone with a permit in the zone, which covers more than 50 roads in the northeast of Cheltenham, can park anywhere else in the zone, while non-residents are limited to a few time-limited bays.

One of the main stated aims of the new Traffic Regulation Order for the All Saints area was to improve residents' ability to park on or near their own road. But for Clint, as well as others in the zone,^[5] this has not been the outcome.

He said: "Parking has now become a main worry of ours, which is amazing when we already have so many. We now dread when we have to go out again next, as we know most likely when we get back, we will have to play musical cars for the next 24 hours, during which time my partner should be resting from her fatigue.

"We try now to only go out if we have to, not that we go out that often anyway. I'm not sure what we pay to have a resident parking permit for anymore, it's certainly not for parking, unless you are prepared to park many streets away, which I think most would agree isn't fair, but especially when you are disabled."

References

1. ^{^} Cheltenham's (www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk)
2. ^{^} more than 50 roads in the town (www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk)
3. ^{^} of the roads in the zone (www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk)
4. ^{^} Huge cyber project near GCHQ takes giant step forward (www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk)
5. ^{^} as well as others in the zone, (www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk)