Okehampton Town Council has agreed to tackle problem parking along Wonnacotts Road following a request from a member of the public.

At a meeting on Monday night, the council debated a request from a member of the public for the introduction of a residents’ parking permit scheme on the road to prevent increasing instances of illegal parking and vehicle abandonment.

In a letter to the council, the member of the public wrote: “Parking of non-residents seems to have become worse this year. We see people parking to use the GP surgery, hospital and to go to work. They avoid paying for town parking by using our road. They also don't care about parking over driveways and completely block pavements, especially the curve around towards Lopes Crescent, which has caused near misses as visibility is occluded. We have also seen cars and vans abandoned for weeks at a time.”

Councillors acknowledged that, as a public highway, drivers were entitled to park along the road, but agreed that increased parking enforcement was needed to stop vehicles from blocking driveways and pavements or being left for extended periods.

Suggestions included asking Devon County Council to extend the traffic officer’s route to cover Wonnacotts Road, and reporting instances of illegal parking to the police as they occur. As evidence of the issue, the council proposed keeping a logbook to record incidents of problem parking.

The member of public has already written to Devon County Council, which is responsible for the county’s public highways, but were unable to progress further.

“You would need to contact the town council and the county councillor,” the county council highways department responded.

“If it can be demonstrated that there is wider support for the suggested scheme, the county councillor would need to formally raise the request. The request would need to meet our current policy requirements.

“At present, we would not have the funding to consider the scheme this financial year, so realistically this would need to be a community-funded scheme.”