Residents living in homes around St Neots Railway Station are being urged to object to new “watered-down” proposals for parking restrictions.

Plans to re-paint double yellow lines and add no-waiting restrictions to some roads have been announced by Cambridgeshire County Council, but St Neots councillor Barry Chapman has told The Hunts Post the measures are woefully inadequate and do not address future growth planned for the town.

Cllr Chapman delivered 1,000 leaflets to homes in the King’s Lane area of the town on Monday, asking residents to object to the proposals which he says fall short of the parking controls he and other councillors fought for.

“Plans for thousands more homes around St Neots at Cambourne and surrounding villages will generate thousands more people using St Neots Railway Station and spread anti-social parking to even more residential streets. There are already problems with people blocking driveways outside properties and the situation is likely to get much worse.”

Last summer, Cllr Chapman conducted an online survey about anti-social parking in the area and says 86 per cent of the 600 homes who responses raised objections about what he describes as “the growing spread of commuter parking”. He says in response to residents’ demands a bid for funding was made and plans were drawn up for parking controls, which won cross-party support at town, district and county level.

“We want to make it clear to residents that we do not support the proposals by highways officers to water-down the proposed scheme as it fails to deliver what is needed. We can’t have St Neots streets being used as a free car park. We urge people to contact the county highways department and make their views known.”

In a statement, Cambridgeshire County Council said: “St Neots Town Council put forward an application to fund the control of on-street parking on Longsands Road and Rowley Road as part of the county council’s Local Highways Improvement Initiative. The application suggested putting in residents parking, but this area does not conform with current policy, due to the majority of properties having off-street parking, leading to an imbalance in provision. After talking with St Neots Town Council it was agreed to take forward a scheme to put parking restrictions near junctions and uncontrolled crossing points to improve safety and reduce bad parking, which was of primary concern. At the same time it was agreed to repaint any existing faded lines in the area. This was agreed with the council as the scheme to take forward and there is currently a public consultation into the Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) plans. If successful, the scheme will be partly paid for by the town council who made the application.”