Yorkshire Water staff face crackdown on parking in residential streets

Residents of Western Way and other roads around the company’s headquarters off Halifax Road have complained that they found it difficult to park anywhere near their homes at certain times of the day due to the company’s staff parking on streets near the site.

Acknowledging the problem, Yorkshire Water has agreed to fund traffic orders worth £14,000 that would include no-parking areas and residents’ parking permits.

At a meeting of Bradford Council’s Bradford South Area Committee on Thursday, members voted to approve the orders – despite a number of objections to the plans.

They will include a mix of no-parking zones and residents parking areas on roads including Western Way, areas of Halifax Road and Farfield Grove and Farfield Crescent.

Members were told that the Council’s Highways Department had been attempting to deal with the issue for three years.

Earlier this year around 280 households were asked for their opinion on the plans.

Five people objected, meaning the plans had to go to the committee.

Andrew Smith, Principal engineer, said: “It has come about because of an issue at the Yorkshire Water headquarters of staff parking on streets nearby causing access issues and problems with residents’ parking.”

He told members there had been five objections to the orders, but added: “Five objections is pretty good considering we balloted 280 properties.”

Members heard from one objector, who questioned why residents’ parking orders were needed on roads where there was currently no problem with parking.

Simon Moscrop from the highways team, added: “As the work developed and people learned what we were doing, they gave us a bit more information, and we learned that it was also causing parking problems on Halifax Road and surrounding streets. The scope of the order has grown as we’ve gone along.

“If you look at some areas under the order, they won’t have problems at the moment.

“The concern is when we bring in the scheme around Yorkshire Water, if we just do it in that area it pushes parking further afield.”

Councillor Angela Tait (Lab, Royds) explained why the restrictions had to be spread out over sugh a wide area, saying: “I totally appreciate the feelings of people who have written in and objected.

“I’ve worked with Simon on this for three years – we had lots of complaints from other constituents along Halifax Road about the parking, and we decided to take preventative action going forward.

“As soon as this scheme is implemented, the staff will just park in the next nearest place.

“As it is Yorkshire Water employees are well within their rights to park where they want because there are no parking restrictions.

“We’re trying to propose a solution, because this has been going on quite some time, causing serious issues.”

Councillor David Warburton (Lab, Wyke) said: “I know officers have worked really hard on this. It will be difficult for some people, but we have to look at the bigger picture.

“If we don’t do this all now we might have to wait years for funding to come again.

Chris Young , Local Democracy Reporting Service