Bath RPZs 'creating problems in neighbouring areas'

Residents' parking zones were brought in for some parts of Bath in February

New residents' parking zones are pushing parking problems into nearby areas, councillors have warned.

The zones in Bath, introduced in February, were meant to stop people leaving their cars in residential streets rather than car parks.

But councillor Jess David said she was getting daily calls about huge numbers of parked cars on residential roads.

"It's a painful process for residents as a new problem has been created that wasn't there before," she said.

"There's a huge amount of parked cars and - despite a few helpful interventions where we put some double yellows in to increase visibility - there are significant problems and I'm getting emails and phone calls every day about it." 

Lambridge ward councillor Saskia Heijltjes told Local Democracy Reporting Service, there had also been "boundary issues" in her ward, which is located at the edge of the Walcot, Snow Hill, and Claremont Road RPZ that launched at the end of July.

'Knock-on impact'

"If you put in an RPZ, I'm completely for it, but what happens to the next area," she asked.

However June Player, who represents Westmoreland which is covered by the new zones, said that the scheme had been "working divinely."

"However, we have not yet got the universities all back and that's only when you can realise how it's going," she said.

Ms David asked if the council was looking at how its policies around the zones might need to be different in outer Bath.

Joel Hirst, the council's cabinet project lead for highways, said the council could look at the policy in outer Bath.

"I think the ambition was that the RPZs will grow out and that we were going to fill in some of the gaps that have been created and deal with some of the knock-on impact of behaviour change of people just trying to sneak out the edge of the zone," he said.