North Derbyshire councillor loses bid to pave way for more off-street parking for tenants

Liberal Democrat Cllr David Hancock urged the Labour-led council at a Full Council meeting on March 4 to consider reviewing its policy on the materials and solutions that are permitted for creating off-street parking at its Rykneld Homes-managed council properties.

He said: “Rykneld’s hands are tied to some degree by policy. We need to set policy and change policy for them to work with it.

“Obviously, lots of our residents want to put in off-street parking. The policy that we have at the moment only allows them to use certain methods. These methods are not particularly environmentally-friendly – concrete is one of them which is one of the worst things.

“And also given what we have seen in recent months there is lots and lots of flooding around the region so our residents are saying they want to actually use permeable materials to look at better quality drives and off-street parking.”

Rykneld Homes does allow tenants to create off-street parking on their properties at their own expense but they currently have to follow the district council’s policy on what materials and solutions can be used.

However, Cllr Hancock argued that technology and materials will inevitably change and new solutions are available which are more cost-effective and better for the environment to support the council’s environmental strategy.

But Green Party Cllr Frank Adlington-Stringer, who opposed the motion, said: “It’s the second time I have had to say parking is not a sustainable solution to the problems we have.

“We talk about flooding. We are creating more spaces for more cars. It’s not the way we should be looking at it.”

Council Leader Nigel Barker, who also opposed the motion, said the request might be well-intentioned but work has to be done in accordance with specifications otherwise the properties would end up with all sorts of different building work.”