As a lifelong resident of Oxhey Village I am well aware of how the parking issues have been created - and sadly exacerbated by our local council - over time.

In the now distant past, housing development was always accompanied by more than adequate parking - garage and parking areas were instated to ensure home owners had access to car facilities - at that time encouraged.

Council changes in town planning has seen the active discouragement of cars (never a feasible plan) in favour of ‘bicycle storage’ - and planning was passed by the council to build over the garage areas in the village to create more housing, rather than maintain allocated parking areas. How could new homeowners then expect to have car parking access when greater strain was being put on existing infrastructure?

In tandem, the fast train incentive at Bushey station encouraged people to move to Oxhey - but also attracted commuters from elsewhere. The increase in footfall over time has had the very positive effect of increasing the number of fast trains - a commercial decision. I value the ability to get into London in 16 minutes - and this has no doubt been beneficial to house prices.

But beware, there is no other option for those commuters who drive to the station - unlike stations such as Stanmore, where restriction there is no car parking facility. When footfall drops due to parking restriction the train stop overs will no doubt reduce or disappear.

It would be possible to solve the issue overnight without permits - just move the fast train stop over to Carpenders Park where there is far more residential parking space - and probably space to create a car park facility. An attractive option for an area of regeneration. But would we want that?

Oxhey does still have a ‘village’ atmosphere - but how sad if we become insular in our access to our community space - when it is no longer possible for others to come into the area without knowing someone who can give them a scratch card ‘permission slip’. When you are unable to pop into the bakers to buy cakes and snacks and spend an afternoon on the green with your family, when you are unable to meet together as a group of friends at the coffee shop or pub, when you cannot stop to visit or collect from the church or school, when a business lunch in the pub is unfeasible, when stopping at the newsagents or estate agents is discouraged by regulation. How long do we remain a village then?

Permits will not solve the evening problem of too many residents with cars and the council does not have a solution to this - so the sticking plaster plan has been offered. CPZ will discourage commuters - but at what price?

Julie Henley

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