The pay and display bays in De Freville Avenue and neighbouring streets are provided so that customers using local Mitchams Corner businesses have accessible, available and inexpensive parking. A secondary purpose is to provide inexpensive short term parking for visitors to local residents.
The County Council is now lumping in these important parking spaces with other Cambridge streets, and is proposing to extend the maximum parking period to 8 hours to serve the needs of visitors to the City Centre.
Their argument is that this allows shoppers to access Cambridge centre for longer shopping trips. Consequently these valuable spaces will be taken away from customers of our local Mitchams Corner businesses, with the inevitable loss of trade.
We petition the Council to remove the De Freville, Montague Road, Aylestone Road and Ferry Path pay and display bays from this extended hours proposal, so that they can continue to serve the needs of the local community at Mitchams Corner. We raise our real concern that the proposed 8 hour stay offers an irresistible option to commuters to dominate these spaces by parking all day long, which is precisely the problem that the parking scheme in this neighbourhood is designed to prevent.
There are currently 63 signatures for this petition: