Furious Portsmouth residents say their lives are a ‘misery’ as workers park in their street

Residents of Mulberry Lane and The Close, in Cosham, Portsmouth, are calling for their own residents' parking zones after years of 'being used as a long stay car park.'

The roads are neighboured by BA, BC and BF zones which were implemented to prevent Queen Alexandra Hospital workers using the streets for parking.

But those living outside those zones say the problem has been shunted on to them.

David Stockdale, 80, of Mulberry Lane, said: 'We're just getting fed up with being fobbed off. The BF zone went in more than two years ago and we complained at the time because we knew what would happen.

'It's QA workers, you see them leaving their cars here and walking to the hospital. They come anytime from 7.30am and can park for 12 hours at a time. It means that no contractors and no carers are able to get in.

'We asked everyone in our own survey and 80 per cent of people in Mulberry Lane wanted permits and 60 per cent in The Close wanted them.'

His neighbour Terry Barfoot, 69, agreed. 'Essentially we are being used as a long stay car park,' he said.

'The parking situation varies from day to day but it makes it extremely difficult if you have visitors or deliveries.

'Meanwhile the adjacent roads to us have lots of empty spaces. Having a parking zone here is the only option that would solve this unless the council removes all the zones from other roads, which is not going to happen.

'QA has expanded and expanded without there being the infrastructure to deal with it.'

Sylvia Whitmore-Jones, 78, added: 'When my husband was still here he had carers. Often they would have to walk from so far away because they couldn't park down here. That meant they would be late.'

BA zone was launched in 2005, with BC a year later. The BF area was then implemented in 2016.

Portsmouth City Council said that Mulberry Lane and The Close would be subject to a consultation on a zone in the future.

Parking team manager Kevin McKee said: 'We receive requests for residents' parking zones in a large number of areas and we need to work through these area by area.

'The current programme of consultations was agreed on 31 July 2018 and while these two roads are not currently in the programme we hope to progress other consultations when resources allow.

'In order to increase the capacity to review areas and include new areas in the programme the number of officers involved in the process has been considerably increased.'

But Mr Barfoot added: 'We should have been consulted on this two years ago.'

Mark Cubbon, chief executive at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, commented: 'The trust provides a park and ride service for staff based out of Fort Southwick and the vast majority of our staff use this facility. We also provide parking for staff members who work outside of normal office hours.

'We have reminded staff about the importance of not parking in local roads and make it clear to staff before they join the organisation that this is not something the trust encourages. We will continue to reinforce this message and apologise to local residents for the impact this is having on their daily lives.'

Two new zones were recently consulted for Southsea - MD and ME. Residents' feedback will be considered before a decision is made.