NEW housing developments in Okehampton are leading to a parking situation that is 'a time bomb waiting to happen', the town council has predicted. The warning comes as ten Okehampton residents have been given one month's notice to vacate their garages on Northfield Road in order to allow for a new housing development. But they have been told that permits for the town's car parks have already been allocated, so they will inevitably end up having to compete for unrestricted, free parking spaces on the already overcrowded Northfield Road. John Hearn, who has rented one of the garages for several years and lives on Northfield Road. is concerned about where he will park. 'Northfield Road is full of people parking to go to the Ockment Centre and the banks. There's no room for the residents to park at all, and it's going to get even worse with all this new housing,' he said. Fred Barlow, 85, has rented one of the garages on Northfield Road for more than 30 years. He has limited mobility, but his wife is able to drive him to places in their car. The couple are now very worried about where they will park. 'The parking was bad enough before, but now there are going to be even more people after the same spaces,' he said. He is hoping the street will be redesignated as a residents-only parking area. At the same time as the garage tenants have been given notice to quit, planning has been requested for another 13 terraced houses and 19 apartments at Gunn's Yard and the adjoining Radnor's Yard — a brownfield site between Northfield Road and North Street, which is currently partly used for parking. That development will incorporate 33 parking spaces — one for each new home, and one guest space. But there is concern that the proposed entraces to the new development will further reduce the parking available on both Northfield Road and North Street. And the town council is concerned that 33 parking spaces is not sufficent for 32 homes and their visitors in an age of two-car families. Cllr Christine Marsh said: 'Our roads are just getting full. And the situation is going to become worse with developers not providing sufficient parking.' The town council is calling on West Devon planners to impose stricter regulations on parking provision at any new developments in Okehampton — before the current lack of parking in the town escalates into a serious social problem. 'Developers will always go for the cheapest option — we need the planners to insist that they provide extra parking,' said Cllr Marsh. She claimed builders and planners in the area had been arguing that people living in Okehampton did not need cars because they lived in a town. 'But they're not recognising that Okehampton's not a town with the facilities of Exeter, and they're not considering what our public transport is like.' The problem of Okehampton's parking needs is complicated by bureacracy — West Devon Borough Council controls off-street parking, except for some car-parks, managed by the town council, but it is Devon County Council which decides where on-street parking restrictions should be imposed. The overall result is a chronic lack of parking. Cllr Marsh said: 'In places like Northfield Road, one person drives into a free space almost the minute that someone else leaves it. If people arrive home early from work, they can't park anywhere near where they live and so they end up parking out of sight of their house — and that's when cars get broken into.' At least four cars parked in and around Okehampton were broken into last week.
