Car Parking Crisis at Sevenoaks
Note: the latest information on Sevenoaks Car Park 4 is in a subsequent post here
Credit: @scottacr
For the past few weeks we have been getting reports about the main Southeastern Car Park at Sevenoaks Station (historically known as “Car Park 4”, north of the bridge and west of the railway line) being unusually full – sometimes with people unable to find spaces at 0830.
In the past it has usually been possible to find a space at least until late morning – especially in the lower part of the car park furthest from the station.
However the closure of the Sevenoaks District Council Bradbourne Park Road car park for the construction of the decking has destabilised the car parking pattern. Although SDC have opened a small temporary car park for their season ticket holders in Morewood Close – a long way from the station – they have not made any replacement provision for casual parking paid by the day. The Bradbourne Park Road car park had some spaces available for on-the-day payers all day, and on-the-day payers could also use season ticket spaces (which were numbered and allocated to specific vehicles) if they were not used by 0930.
The first wave of complaints we received were from Southeastern car parking season ticket holders who were unable to find a space in Car Park 4 after 0900 – and sometimes earlier. The normal expectation is that, although Southeastern season ticket holders are not guaranteed a space, they should be able to find one until at least 0930.
Today Southeastern (or their car parking subcontractor) has put up a notice saying that from next Monday all spaces in Car Park 4 will be reserved for season ticket holders until 0830 Monday to Friday.
This has prompted a second wave of complaints from on-the-day payers – including part time commuters and those who usually use public transport but who need to take a car to the station occasionally– all of whom will be completely excluded from the Car Park until 0830 and for whom there is no alternative provision in the area (there are strict on-street parking restrictions anywhere within easy walking distance of the station).
We appreciate that Sevenoaks District Council’s action has created a situation where Southeastern cannot please everybody. (We have previously called for the Council and the rail company to work together on station car parking.) However the new policy is:
- Extremely hard on on-the-day payers – who have nowhere to leave their car before 0830.
- Unhelpful for season ticket holders arriving after 0830 who will still have no guarantee of a space.
We’ve asked Southeastern for some numbers to justify the new policy. For instance what is the number of Car Park 4 season ticket holders involved, and how does this compare with the capacity of the car park? How many would typically arrive in each hour?
We have also suggested that an initial step a more limited reservation policy, which balances the conflicting interests of season ticket holders and on-the-day payers, should be tried first, starting next Monday:
- reserve just the lower part of the car park – which is clearly delineated and has around 60 spaces – for season ticket holders.
- allow the upper part of the car park to be first-come, first-served (since that’s closest to the station it will naturally fill up first)
- make the reservation of the lower part effective until 0930. This would be in line with the usual line on the availability of spaces for railway car park season ticket holders, and would be in line with historic practice in the Sevenoaks District Council car parks.
- run this for a few weeks, and then adjust if necessary (if it does not work then the more draconian approach currently planned could be re-examined).
What do you think please? Are there any other ideas that would balance the conflicting interests of different groups of car park users please? Let us know here.
This may prove to be a big issue at our Annual General Meeting tomorrow night. If you have views, please do come and tell Southeastern and local Councillors directly!
Update 1400 19 October: The Car Park operator Indigo are saying (here and here) that there will be “limited areas for non-permit holders in the bottom section of the car park”. That’s not what the notice says, and there are no further details. Of course, Indigo will be the people fining anyone who doesn’t follow their instructions!
Update 1600 21 October: After a lively discussion of this issue at our Annual General Meeting yesterday evening we’re still waiting from confirmation from Southeastern on what the arrangements will actually be on Monday morning. In an email they’ve said that the lower car park will be reserved for on-the-day payers until 0830, but it’s unclear whether or not there will be a restriction on the upper car park. There were also suggestions at the meeting that the problem may be the overselling of season tickets – possibly because former SDC season ticket holders have been buying Southeastern car parking seasons instead, because the temporary SDC car park is so far away. In other news, SDC have said that they will review whether better use can be made of their temporary car park in Morewood Close.
I’d also call out the likely impact on Dunton Green and Knockholt stations. Both have limited paid for and free provision which is already full. On the day payers forced out of Sevenoaks will find no luck at either station.. Not ideal.
Not everyone needs to drive. Many people could perfectly well travel by bike. Many people would like to ride their bikes but are put off doing so by their perception of road danger, so this would need active policing in the short term, to give people confidence that drivers behaving dangerously will be stopped, and in the medium term requires safe, separated cycleways. This would free up parking spaces but would also have wider benefits of reducing congestion, pollution and the risk of crashes. We can’t keep building our way out of our over-reliance on motor vehicles.
It’s a crazy situation. I’ve been a regular on the day Parker around the station at 9.30am. Because of the closure on Bradbourne Park Rd I haven’t been able to park for the past 4 weeks. I’m now commuting from Otford which means I have to use the tube in London as I’m coming in to a different station. It’s ridiculous that in a commuter town the facilities that serve that can be changed so arbitrarily without any consideration of the knock ons.
As a season ticket holder often unable to park if I get to station post 8.15 I support the new plan, however if Indigo can provide details of how many season tix are sold then it should be possible to calculate how many spaces should be kept available for daily Parking tix without a time restriction.
The suggestion of only keeping 60 for season tix won’t work as I know that even before this debacle there were many more than 60 season ticket holders who regularily park well before 8 am so this would not address the problem.
At the moment south east and indigo are effectively selling each space twice then collecting additional money when they fine people who are illegally parked, adding to the injustice is the fact that the spaces temporarily given to southeastern staff when the 2012 Olympic refurbishment was being carried out have still not been released back into the main car park despite them regularily being unused.
@pam Thanks. Our suggestion was that at all times season ticket holders could park anywhere, but that the 60 spaces in the lower car park should be reserved for season ticket holders only until 0930. We’d expect early season ticket holders to take spaces in the upper car park, and the 60 spaces in lower car park would serve those season ticket holders arriving between say 0815 and 0930.
@james Thanks. We strongly agree that there should be more co-ordination between the rail company and the District Council on this. It’s not for want of us trying to bring the two together!
I am a weekly/day payer on the waiting list for a permit (for ages). Having wandered through the vast emptiness of the upper car park at 6.40 in the morning whilst having been herded into the lower car park, I think your proposed solution has a lot of common sense to commend it. Early permit holders and day users would have the large upper car park first come first served and permit holders the additional guaranteed use of the lower spaces if the upper area is full later in the morning. True no one is going to be happy, but seems a compromise.