Southend Airport passengers forced to find new parking

Yellow lines have been painted around parked cars on a main road near to Southend Airport as the council enforce a new parking restriction.

The restriction, which will come into force once the yellow lines have been fully painted, will prevent motorists from parking on the road between 8am and 6pm.

Southend Council has brought in the new restriction in attempts to stop passengers using Southend Airport from parking on the road for lengthy periods of time.

Local residents have complained to the council that drivers have parked their vehicles on the road for periods of weeks, which has stopped them from parking near their homes. Some residents have reported having to drive around the roads looking for a place to park and finding airport travelers have parked over their driveways.

The council says they have listened to the residents and has instructed workmen to paint the lines on the road, around parked cars if necessary, until the whole stretch of road can be line-painted.

However, other local residents have raised concerns about the new parking restrictions saying they fear it will just push airport passengers further into the side roads.

Southend Airport has said they are committed to encouraging passengers to travel to the airport via public transport instead of driving. A survey of airport passengers in October 2012 showed that 29% of passengers used public transport. The survey also claims that only 0.3% of Southend airport travelers park on nearby streets.

The airport’s Surface Access Strategy report suggests that passengers parking in nearby roads is not a major issue, stating that monitoring surveys undertaken by local authorities show that most streets near to the airport are not fully used either during weekdays, nights or weekends. The report says that there are only a few nearby streets where the level of occupancy is exceeding 70%.