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CAN SOMEONE TELL CESSNOCK COUNCIL THAT THE NSW GOVT PROVIDES CLEAR PARKING GUIDELINES FOR NARROW ROADS

Cessnock Councillor Jay Savall posed for a photo standing the in the middle of the road with his arms wide apart to demonstrate how little room there is for cars to pass down the middle of the road on narrow roads, we can’t show the photo for copyright reasons but most of you have seen the photo already.

In a quick catch up for those who have not been following the parking circus, Cessnock Council had an old parking policy which allowed parking on the nature strip which was at odds to the NSW Road Rules, so they updated the parking policy to reflect the NSW Road Rules upsetting everyone who loves parking on the nature strip.

Cessnock Council is now in the process of repealing the parking policy because they now realize they don’t need it, because they don’t have jurisdiction to set the road rules. But what councillors voted for does not offer any solutions to current problems.

If councillors had bothered to do any research they would have found a document called TTD 2014/004 published by the NSW GOVT which outlines the solutions to many of the problems, whilst they are not perfect solutions, it will prevent the road from being blocked and allow for emergency vehicles to pass through with ease.

There are three solutions to fix these issues two of which would not burn a whole in the budget.

Parking only on one side of the road.

The first option is to ban parking on one side of the street and upset 50% of the people who live on that street, how you determine which side to allow or ban I will leave that up to council. See image below.

Parking only on one side

Staggered Parking.

The second solution is to stagger parking on narrow roads which means two cars can’t park directly across from each, the council can simply paint parking lines where you can park. This could also create more revenue opportunities for those pesky rangers.

Staggered parking

Welcome to pleasent ville, where parking is built into the nature strip.

The thrid solution solution is more expensive and looks great and that is to cut designated car parking spaces into the nature strip, but this can only be done if the footpaths minimum widths can be maintained. See image below.

The gold standard, parking built into the nature strip.

By the way Cessnock Council was gloating they have a budget surplus, perhaps they could spend some on parking upgrades.

There you have it the solutions to your problems, but will any councillor move a motion to implement a real practical solution to parking or will they continue to do nothing.

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