On-Street Parking Charges

As some of you may have heard, we have successfully managed to fight the parking charges that Surrey County Council were planning to force on Tandridge. Unfortunately it looks like Horley will still be included in the proposals.

I was especially glad that Surrey County Council recognised Tandridge's unique character as an area - small towns dotted among rolling countryside - and are now willing to root the process firmly in local opinion.

Tandridge is a different case to the rest of Surrey because it benefits from a great deal of free parking already, and indeed this has been an active strategy by Tandridge District Council to support our town centres. But the parking charges were a real threat to businesses: 88% of local businesses who responded to a survey by the local Chamber of Commerce said that parking charges would be a threat to the future of their own business, with over a third of businesses considering relocating out of Oxted if the proposals went ahead. It was crucial that we managed to find another way.

The team effort that occurred to achieve this change in policy was enormous - from my initial discussions with the local Chambers of Commerce about their Business Impact Assessment and with Gordon Keymer at Tandridge District Council, to crucial interventions by Councillors Nick Skellett and David Hodge - the local input was fantastic and really helped to make a strong case for supporting our local businesses and changing the policy as it then stood.

Thank you to all who were involved; it was a great effort all round and one which has meant the right result was achieved at the end.

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