Residents in Peak District town have their pleas for parking restrictions rejected by council officials

Residents on the Castle Hill housing estate in Bakewell say they have long-standing issues with tourists and people working in the town centre parking on their streets and leaving them without space for their own vehicles.

The vast majority of homeowners on the estate, 145 in total, backed a move for parking restrictions, with Sarah Dines, Derbyshire Dales MP; Cllr Paul Miller, Mayor of Bakewell, and district councillor Mark Wakeman also giving their support.

They had asked for an access only restriction for the whole estate, meaning vehicles would only be allowed to enter if they are visiting a property and to only be allowed to park if they are a resident.

The petition said: “This (the estate) shortcut is used both for the Station Yard Industrial Estate and the Monsal Trail.

“Residents around the entrances to the estate seem to be blighted more by the inconsiderate parking that so often ensues.

“A prohibition of driving (except for access) restriction, the same as the other side of town, would, we feel, greatly assist with both these problems.

“Many of the vehicles that enter the estate and park belong to people that work in the town, and these vehicles are left outside residents’ properties all day long.

“Clearly these people need to park, but alternative provision needs to be found because this is greatly upsetting many residents.

“As the Monsal Trail has, since the opening up of the tunnels, become such a popular tourist attraction, the level of vehicles both using the estate as a short cut and often then parking inconsiderately has increased rapidly in recent years.

“This (the Bakewell) entrance to the (Monsal) trail is at the Station Yard and visitors are often parking dangerously and inconsiderately, for free, day in day out on the estate.

“There have been numerous incidents at the particularly dangerous junction of Aldern Way and Baslow Road, where drivers are often forced to approach the junction on the wrong side of the highway due to inconsiderately parked vehicles at the bottom of Aldern Way who then meet traffic pulling into the estate using it as a through route.”

“We are also very concerned about the soon-to-be-built medical hub. The council knows full well that there is not nearly enough parking and accept that the overflow will be our estate which was never designed to be used in this way.”

A report on the issue, written by council officers and now approved by Cllr Kewal Singh Athwal, cabinet member for highways, details that there are not enough vehicles using the affected housing estate to justify “any intervention measures to deter this”.

It says that in an assessed 12-hour period an average of 2.8 vehicles an hour entered Aldern Way and left from Burre Close and an average of four vehicles per hour travelled on the reverse journey – totalling around seven an hour passing through the estate.

Council officers detail that an average of 5,224 vehicles a day pass through Bakewell on the A619 which runs past the housing estate, as of the latest figures from 2021.

They write: “It is not disputed that the Aldern Way area will experience roadside parking by non-residents.

“However, on-going monitoring by officers has established parking behaviours would neither constitute a hazard nor an unreasonable obstruction to other road users.

“All the properties have off-street parking facilities and these have not been observed to be obstructed with driveways being kept clear.

“The residents have made it clear that they would not be in favour of a residents’ parking scheme, although these are only usually considered in areas where the residents have little or no off-street parking options and are reliant on the roadside for parking.”

Officers write that vehicles have commonly been reported for parking too close to the Baslow Road/Aldern Way junction, but say this is “sporadic” and has not led to any accidents in the past 15 years.

Officers write that the medical hub has a capacity to have space for up to 81 cars an hour, based on visitors parking for 20 minutes on average, which they feel is appropriate.

County councillor for the area, Cllr Alasdair Sutton, said he supported the restrictions, and advised Derbyshire Dales District Council to provide subsidised parking on the Bakewell showground for £10 a month.

The district council offers season tickets for parking at the Agricultural Business Centre and on the New Street car park for £42.07 a month, £252.40 for six months and £504.80 for a year.

Cllr Athwal wote: “Given the considerable amount of information (which has been) previously provided in relation to this matter it remains very unlikely that officer recommendations would differ from the response as outlined above.

“To conclude, whilst I wholly acknowledge that you remain dissatisfied with our responses to your requests, in view of the level of previous correspondence we have entered into over the past years, I feel I must draw these issues to a close.”