Student parking problem re-emerges in Weeke (From This is Hampshire)

Student parking problem re-emerges in Weeke

7:00am Tuesday 5th March 2013 in News By Joseph Curtis

STUDENTS at a Winchester sixth-form college are again causing parking problems in a local suburb, according to residents.

Householders in Greenacres, Weeke, told police they were fed up with drivers parking in their private road, particularly those who appear to be students at Peter Symonds College.

Gary McCulloch, 40, of Greenacres, said: “I have become frustrated with my interactions with Peter Symonds and I don’t really feel they are taking this seriously even though it’s their students causing the problem.

“What happens when someone comes and parks on my driveway? What do I do then?”

Police were speaking to residents from Weeke, Fulflood, Harestock and Littleton as part of a Partnership and Communities Together (PACT) meeting, ironically at the college, designed to keep officers informed of local issues.

Mr McCulloch, IT manager, added: “The other problem is the antisocial behaviour associated with it. If I go and speak to them, they generally do what they are told, which is to move their car, but they are quite rude and there is a lot of bad language.”

Victoria Furness, 29, teacher, of Greenacres, added: “These people are parking in our close and it is not wide enough to support that. If the rubbish truck cannot get in easily because of this it will steer up on to the grassy verge and damage that.”

Much of Weeke used to have a student parking problem but it was largely stopped when residents-only parking was introduced in 2010.

Beat officer PC Nick Whitehouse said their powers were limited because Greenacres is a private road and so not part of the warden-patrolled area.

But Sgt Matt Fancett added: “If you get abuse from someone and you think they are a student and you get their car registration, speak to the college. They will pass the information on to us and then we can deal with it. The college is usually very helpful and supportive of us.”

But Peter Symonds principal Neil Hopkins said the college makes students aware of the difficulties in driving to the campus.

He said: “We make it very clear to students and their parents before they enrol at the college that they should not expect to be able to drive to Winchester once they turn 17 and pass their driving tests.

“The planning authorities have made it very clear that they do not want us to increase our own parking capacity on site.

“Unfortunately we cannot identify students from car registration numbers and we have no powers to prevent parking in areas that have no yellow lines or other legal parking restrictions.”