A frustrated Harpenden resident has spoken out against “mind-boggling” parking restrictions being proposed for the town by the district council.

SADC is currently consulting on plans to put no waiting restrictions, and resident-only parking from 10am to 4pm, on different stretches of Holcroft Road, Carisbrooke Road, Station Road, West Way, and Waveney Road.

The council hopes this will “reduce instances of inappropriate or inconsiderate parking”, “reduce congestion”, “improve road safety”, and make more room for resident parking.

Clifford Walpole, who has lived on nearby Wroxham Way for 22 years, believes the proposals will not help the parking problem, but will just push the influx of cars onto surrounding, narrower roads.

He says this is already happening after similar restrictions were put on Manland Avenue: “The problem is the council are systematically putting parking restrictions in place on the roads around where we live, but the problem doesn’t go away, it just moves it on.

“We don’t want parking restrictions on our road because we have to provide places for all these cars. The problem gets pushed around and nobody wants to grasp the mettle to sort it out.”

He noted that during school term-time the road gets so blocked that emergency services would not be able to access the road.

“The answer is more parking space. There’re too many bloody cars and nowhere to park them.

“These restrictions move the issue somewhere else each time and the council are chasing their tails.”

Head of legal, democratic and regulatory services at SADC, Michael Lovelady, emphasised it was only a proposal and had not been finalised: “This is a community-led initiative that followed complaints from residents living in these streets about inappropriate parking by people from outside the area.

“As a result of their concern, a consultation of all the residents within this area was carried out last year.

“It was agreed with the ward councillors that this consultation showed there was sufficient demand among the residents for a Controlled Parking Zone to be introduced.

“The scheme would only apply to the streets where residents had raised concerns.”

He encouraged people with comments to email parkingrestrictions@stalbans.gov.uk by June 14.