New charges for several Bexhill car parks agreed

On Monday (September 7), Rother District Council’s cabinet approved proposals to introduce parking charges at eight off-street car parks – mostly in Bexhill – which are currently free to use. 

The proposals are intended to coincide with East Sussex County Council introducing on-street parking charges around Rother later this month.

Cllr Kathryn Field (Lib Dem), cabinet member for environmental management, said: “We can’t underestimate the enormous change which residents, particularly in Bexhill, are going to find with the joint introduction of civil parking enforcement and on-street car parking charging and the car park charges we are going to propose.

“There will be displaced car parking from people trying to avoid paying for on-street car parking [and] diving into our council’s off-street car parks.

“We do need to find some way of discouraging that and I do think charging is the right way to go.”

Seven of the eight car parks to introduce charges are in Bexhill. They include the car parks at Egerton Park and Manor Gardens and the two car parks at the top and bottom of Galley Hill. 

Charges will also be introduced at the parking spaces at the Polegrove and Richmond Road as well as those in front of the war memorial. 

Charges will also be introduced for parking outside of the town hall, but this would only be at weekends and bank holidays.

The final free car park to introduce charges will be at the Cricket Salts in Rye. 

As part of the wider proposals, charges currently in place at the Eversley Road and Wainswright Road car parks to bring them into line with the new charges elsewhere.

All the car parks will charge £1 per hour.