Meeting: Tuesday 9th February

The next Residents Association meeting will take place on Tuesday 9th at 7pm in St Josephs Parish Centre. Everyone is welcome. We hope to have answers to some of the questions which have been put to representatives from the Council, the hospital and the Police!


Minutes of the meeting held January 12th 2010:

Amanda opened the meeting by showing copies of letters sent by B Smith and fellow residents of Ewesley Road to Stephen Pickering, Deputy Executive Director of Sunderland Civic Centre, expressing their disappointment and anger at the way in which the consultation exercise was carried out and the lack of information given regarding many points of the planned parking management scheme. They also stated their strong disapproval of some of the parking plans proposed. A letter had also been sent to Cllr Martin asking why he was so unsupportive of the residents in his constituency. A letter had been received by B Smith in answer to the letters, basically stating that the plans were still in the consultation phase. He thought the consultation had been well organised and had only received two letters of complaint. He ended by stating the Council could not force the Hospital to build a multi-storey car park. The meeting agreed that noticeably more voices of complaint were heard at the consultation. A letter had been sent by the Committee to Mr Pickering stating the many concerns raised at the December meeting and noting that Mr Pickering himself attended the consultation and could have been left in no doubt about the residents feelings. A request for the time scale of the consultation result being made public had also been requested. The letter had been sent late owing to Christmas holidays etc but as yet there had been no reply received.

P Dixon pointed out that it may be possible to organise a petition on the Downing St website. The meeting agreed we needed to know the outcome of the consultation before we could decide on further action.

L Ranton stated it might be wiser to send all correspondence by recorded delivery in order to guarantee replies within the 15 working days stated in the Citizens Charter. It was also proposed to correspond with Stephen Pickering by e-mail.

Following discussion the committee agreed the best and easiest option for parking management was for 1st permits to be issued by house, not applications for individual cars. A City wide park and ride scheme such as York or Durham would solve a lot of the traffic problems for the whole of Sunderland including the Hospital.

The committee suggested a letter be sent to the Hospital Trust suggesting they give a multi-storey car park further consideration as it was noted that the possibility and sighting had already been considered in the past by the Hospital but waived because of costs. Funding towards the costs could possibly be gained by approaching i.e. the Government or NHS.

The meeting discussed the rights of Blue Badge holders in the new parking management scheme. CSO Hodgkiss from Northumbria Police for the Barnes area had been in touch by telephone offering his contact number for members of the public noticing cars parked blocking entrances or parked dangerously. His number is 0191 5679204. S Adamson to contact Northumbria Police to ask if they could attend a meeting to provide information regarding parking issues.