Questions & Answers

Below are some of the questions put to Councillors, the police and hospital representatives at the public meeting earlier this month.

Amanda Robinson opened the meeting with a question to Cllr Watson. At the last meeting Cllr Watson stated he would work 24 hours a day to find a solution to the parking problem. Had he managed to find a solution?
Cllr Watson: stated the hospital needs to operate day-to-day. Residents only parking and parking bays would mean losing up to ½ of the present available parking. The Department of Transport have been approached to find a way of exempting bays and yellow lines from Resident Only parking areas. The Dept of Transport were sending a “top representative” to look at the situation.

A resident pointed out that many of the relevant streets were never made aware of any official consultation process by the council.

Q: What can be legally done about obstructive parking?
A: Sgt Hall stated always ring the police. Unfortunately these calls would not be given priority. He also suggested contact numbers for the police be passed to the Chairperson to distribute to the public.

Resident: Residents parking should not have to be paid for by the residents themselves. We already pay road and council tax.

George Hood: stated that the hospital were looking to reduce the problem. Up to 80 people per day were using the Park and Ride scheme from Sainsburys. Hopefully this scheme would be extended soon to the north from a site near the Alexandra Bridge. Also looking to negotiate a similar scheme to the west.

Cllr Gofton: stated that all the councillors for Pallion opposed charges for resident only parking.
Cllr Watson: stated that some way had to be found to finance any scheme.
Cllr Arnott: stated that all the options given in the original consultation included payment schemes. The conservative councillors had put forward an 8th Option requiring 2hr only parking signs for visitors with no charge for resident only permits. If parking bays and double yellow lines were introduced this would be “1 step forward and 2 steps back”. An urgent response should be requested from the Dept of Transport. A standard scheme needs to be put to the Dept. He then asked Cllr Watson what was the outcome of the Planning Application meeting earlier that day.

Cllr Watson: stated that the application could not be turned down as adequate provision had been made to increase parking in the hospital grounds for the extension. There would be legal implications if the application was deferred for this reason. The hospital had stated they were willing to look at how they could help with the car parking problems. The application had been deferred for the moment because the Bat survey had not yet been done.
Cllr Arnott: stated the hospital were making all the right noises in order to get their application passed.

Resident: The hospital is fundamentally responsible for the parking problems. Any business has to put in place adequate parking arrangements for their staff and customers. This has been a long-standing problem. The police need to be present and ticket offenders to discourage obstructive parking.
George Hood: stated improper behaviour by SRH staff is taken seriously by the hospital. The hospital are encouraging their staff to take part in car sharing schemes, park and walk from Clanny House and setting up a Bicycle User Group. This would not solve the problems but would be making a contribution.

Carol Harries: stated the residents had her word that the car parking problem is a big issue and the present situation is not acceptable.

George Hood: stated a multi-storey car park was possible but the costs would be huge – between £6-9 million. This debt would have to be paid for meaning parking charges would have to go up, forcing some people to park back in the streets.

Resident: The council is managing to find 30 million pounds to build a new Iconic bridge which was not essential.
Cllr Watson: stated that the money from the bridge was from a different budget.

Cllr Morrissey: The only way to focus people to park in the hospital instead of the surrounding streets would be by introducing residents only parking. Then a multi-storey car park would have to be used.

Resident: Concerns and solutions to the parking problems have been expressed at previous public meetings but we are still not being listened to.
Cllr Gofton: What the residents have to say has been listened to by the council.
Cllr Watson: Stated that 12 weeks since the public consultation was not a long time.
Resident: At the last public meeting the hospital trust and the council stated they would meet to over options. Have they met since that time?
Cllr Watson: Countless meetings were going on at different levels all the time. The parking problem is a priority. The response to the consultation and requests would be looked into. There were resource constraints and costs.

M Greenfield: When will the results of the consultation in February be publicised. The problems are caused mainly by hospital admin and support staff. With the modern electronic highway was it necessary for all support staff to be based in a large administrative block in the hospital grounds. Couldn’t they be moved offsite to help alleviate the situation?
George Hood: stated that one of the options they were looking at was to move blocks of admin off site. They were also looking at spreading some departmental work over 7 days.

Cllr Dixon: pointed out that other areas had similar problems. Some had been solved with schemes which did not include double yellow lines and parking bays. The Freeman Hospital in Newcastle discouraged long term parking in the surrounding streets with 1hr am and 1hr pm only parking.

Resident: The police need to purge the streets and ticket offenders.
Sgt Hall: Stated the police would look into this but would need to know the major affected areas.
Resident: Visitors were not the major problem as they only parked for a couple of hours at a time. Staff parked their cars for up to 12 hours at a time, sometimes even longer. How are staff allocated parking in the hospital?
George Hood: Only consultants had allocated parking in the hospital.
Resident: Staff would not pay for use of hospital parking if they could not be guaranteed allocated parking.
Cllr Arnott: Stated the hospital needed to do an in-depth survey on this situation.
George Hood: Have done this but only accurate for that day.
Cllr Arnott: It needs to be ongoing. The only incentive for hospital staff would be free parking.

Resident: In Chatsworth Street visitor parking is also a problem as cars come and go all day. The hospital need to publicise park and ride scheme to visitors and outpatients as well as staff.

Resident: City wide council run park and ride schemes seem to work in other cities like York and Durham.
Cllr Watson: This is something to think about long term. Presently Sunderland does not have a big traffic problem other than the hospital parking at the moment.
Resident: Need several satellite park and rides around the city.
Resident: If Sunderland does not have a traffic problem why all the work to create diversions on Chester Road.
Cllr Watson: stated Chester Road was a bad problem. Bus priority options were needed as well as lights at Springwell Road roundabout.

Cllr Arnott: asked Cllr Watson if the Dept of Transport was fully in touch with what was going on here. The residents’ opinions needed to be put to the gentleman taking up our case. Could Cllr Watson give the meeting his name so he could be contacted by the Residents Committee? He suggested Cllr Watson stressed the urgency of a need for response. When response received then we could all meet again.
Cllr Watson: stated he could not remember the name of the gentleman from the Dept of Transport, but he had already stressed the residents’ concerns.