Residents win parking victory after petition

Residents who live along Jubilee Terrace and Kings Terrace in Southsea started an e-petition after Portsmouth City Council stopped renewing their parking permits for the road.

But Councillor Ken Ellcome, cabinet member for traffic and transportation, reversed the decision after meeting residents.

Jason Bentley, who started the petition, said he was thrilled about the result.

The 44-year-old, from Jubilee Terrace, said: ‘It’s fantastic. It shows that the e-petition clearly worked. It’s people power and it shows what you can achieve when you kick up enough fuss.’

The new rule was stopping the residents parking on the terraces between 8am and 6pm from Monday to Saturday.

Mr Bentley said this was forcing many of them into the already-congested KB parking zone behind the terraces, with the problem at its worst on Saturdays.

Cllr Ellcome said: ‘I took into account the points made by Mr Bentley and other residents – they were saying they had to park in the road behind which is already busy.

‘Parking behind the road, they couldn’t see their cars, so I thought I could relax it in this case.’

Cllr Ellcome said the change was being made in the first place to make sure residents parked in residents’ parking zones and to ensure there were enough parking spaces for businesses.

Mr Bentley said the decision had caused uproar on the road, and about 50 residents had been affected.

He said: ‘We’ve enjoyed that parking for the last 50 years so to come along and say you now have to park in a place where there are no spaces is just absolutely insane.

‘It completely put the cat among the pigeons.

‘On the weekends we would have been all driving around looking for a space along with all the other resident of KB.

‘You can’t force every single car out of the city.’

Mr Bentley said the reversal had met with a jubilant response. He said: ‘I’ve got letters in my door, people were e-mailing me saying “thank you so much”. The council has seen the light and thank God they did.’