We've seen several incidents over the Summer where event organisers have not followed traffic plans, causing disruption to local residents across Tandridge.
The most notorious example of this was when attendees of a music festival in Newchapel parked dangerously on the A22 between Newchapel and Blindley Heath, causing the road to be closed by police for several hours. This caused unacceptable congestion not just along the A22 but in nearby villages such as Lingfield.
Another example involved attendees of a car festival on Kenley Aerodrome parking on surrounding roads, disrupting traffic on Buxton Lane and Ninehams Road travelling between Caterham, Old Coulsdon and Kenley.
I raised a question at Tandridge District Council's Community Services Committee on 18 October 2022 expressing concerns about this and asking if the Council will consider funding extra wardens out of hours to attend hotspot areas.
Sevenoaks District Council carry out parking enforcement on behalf of Tandridge District Council. The contract covers 5 days per week split over Monday to Saturdays with Sundays worked as required for specific events such as the Caterham Carnival. One month’s Notice needs to be given for these ad hoc events. A parking plan included in an Event Management Plan and Risk Assessment is considered through the multi-agency Safety Advisory Group (SAG) meetings. All enforcement agencies can view, make comment and raise any specific concerns. Traffic Management falls under the remit of Surrey County Council (SCC) Highways who are also involved in the SAG and are able to raise any concerns. Unfortunately, this is only an advisory group so if there any specific issues at an event then the relevant enforcing agency (Police or Highways) would need to take action. In the case down in Blindley Heath the Police did step in. The Safety Advisory Group will review the events and consider whether future events could have additional action requested, such as use of traffic cones for which permission would be required from SCC Highways Authority. SCC would take into consideration any concerns from Surrey Police before making a decision. If the cars are parked on unrestricted roads they can’t be enforced, the event organiser may choose to cone the roads surrounding the venue, to deter parking but this can’t be enforced. The car festival was an event which fell under the London Borough of Croydon for the event management. We will request these events are better communicated in the future. Significant traffic disruption as was seen at Blindley Heath is not common and we do not consider that the current enforcement contract needs to change so we would not want to fund additional wardens.
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