Last year I started a campaign against the county council Coalition's plans to introduce parking charges at Crimdon. Full background details can be found here: https://robcrute-blackhall.blogspot.com/2023/10/say-no-to-parking-charges-at-crimdon.html
Since then similar proposals to introduce parking charges at Seaham further along the coast were put before the council's highways committee for their consideration (technically the members of the committee can only approve plans 'in principle', with the final decision passed to the relevant corporate director for a final decision under delegated authority).
Any members of the public following this issue will have noticed that the proposal to implement charges at Crimdon were not included on the highways committee agenda, and this is because the cabinet member responsible for introducing charges has agreed to suspend the charges for the time being to allow more time to look at a better, fairer way of managing parking issues in some parts of the sea front at Crimdon.
I met with the cabinet member early this month (on Wednesday 6 March) to talk in more detail about the impact that introducing parking charges along the front at Crimdon would have on visitor numbers where currently free parking provision is a significant incentive for more people to visit the area. The cabinet member agreed that charges may act as a deterrent to visitors and is prepared to consider a different approach that may reduce the scale and extent of parking charges.
I suggested that the plans to introduce parking charges should be scrapped, however the cabinet member insisted that the proposals were driven primarily by financial and budgetary constraints which will need to be met, one way or another. For that reason alone she is not able at this stage to rule out parking charges at some point in the future, which may be aligned to alternative restrictions at some locations to address public concerns about problem parking issues at Crimdon.
As things stand the proposals to charge for parking at Crimdon have been suspended to allow for further consideration of a scheme that fits with a wider traffic regulation order to prevent inconsiderate parking along the sea front. I'll publish a further update as soon as I have more information.
