PLANS to impose car parking charges in a West Devon village have been slammed following a meeting in the parish last week. Landowners Maristow Estate have applied for planning permission to erect parking meters in St Paul?s Church car park and at Leg o? Mutton car park in Yelverton. Last week, estate manager Joe Hess met Buckland Monachorum parish councillors in an attempt to explain the new policy. West Devon borough ward member Cllr John Soul, who attended the meeting, said there was ?disbelief and amazement that Maristow could have been contemplating such a thing?. ?It was almost as if the estate was taking no notice of the local community at all and was doing whatever it wanted to make more pennies. ?There didn?t seem to be any concern that this would push cars further out onto the moor where they don?t have to pay, and there didn?t seem to be any concern at all about people having to pay for parking their cars when they went to a funeral.? Cllr Soul said when Yelverton Village Park was first created at Leg o? Mutton, a great deal was made of the generosity of Lord Roborough in granting the community use of the land for the park. ?He?s now wanting to charge parents to park their cars there ? I think the whole thing is quite bizarre,? said Cllr Soul. Cllr Margaret Garton, West Devon ward member for Buckland, said she was ?very disappointed? at the proposals: ?I am also very disappointed Maristow seems to have lost its sense of stewardship of the land it owns, unlike many land-owning families in Devon. ?And I am incredibly disappointed they suggest people attending funerals in Yelverton should pay to park their cars.? Cllr Garton said she felt installation of parking meters and subsequent monitoring would not be financially worthwhile and was a ?sledgehammer to crack a walnut?. Parish council chairman Peter Wing was grateful that Mr Hess had come to talk to the council. But Cllr Wing said the council was objecting to the proposal: ?Our concern is if they put charges on there, people will probably park their cars elsewhere. ?We have objected on grounds it puts local residents at a disadvantage, after they have enjoyed free parking there for probably 20 or more years.? But Mr Hess rejected councillors? views as ?completely blinkered?. He said: ?When Maristow applied to site a fish and chip van at St Paul?s car park last year, the parish council was vociferous in its objections. At that time the estate said it was going to conduct a strategic review of its land use in the area and this is part of it.? Mr Hess said the land was private and Maristow was not under any obligation to provide it for community use. He said the estate wrote to the parish council in November to inform it of its intentions and invited it to consult ? the parish declined. Mr Hess said: ?Certainly in St Paul?s, I think the introduction of charges will free up parking spaces which in turn will provide greater access to the shopping facilities. ?I know people don?t like to pay but unfortunately it?s a fact of life ? I?d be interested to know how they expect this site to remain open without any maintenance. ?And to say we have lost our sense of community is absolute tosh. We are an estate that?s been here for over 200 years, we know about land management and use and we are doing the responsible thing as a land owner in managing this land, which I think is more responsible than burying your head in the sand.? Dartmoor National Park?s planning committee is due to consider Maristow?s application when it meets on May 5.
