Seapark beach: Double yellow lines to be installed at parking spot
"As a result of this, these double yellow lines should help reduce parking allowing for better traffic progression entering and leaving the A2 resulting in reduced queuing onto the A2," she said in her letter to North Down assembly and Environment Minister Andrew Muir.Kimmins added that Department for Infrastructure officials would monitor the situation after the lines are installed to "determine whether further restrictions are appropriate".
'Main road is quite tight'
As Northern Ireland basks in glorious sunshine, there was a mixed reaction to the news of the incoming double yellow lines from those enjoying the weather at Seapark beach.Shannon Grimley, from west Belfast, was on her first visit to the beach and said she was lucky getting parked in the car park as another vehicle had pulled out of a space."I could see the main road though was covered in cars and it is quite tight," she said.Shannon also expressed sympathy for residents over the parking situation, saying: "I know if I was living there, it would be a pain."
John Compston was enjoying the sunny weather with his granddaughter Atlanta Savage.John said he could understand locals being "fed up" with the situation."But you would think there would be another way of putting more car parking spaces in somewhere along the way," he added.When asked about their parking experience, Atlanta said: "It's kind of the same as it is at Helen's Bay... at the end of the day, you pay road tax and it's people coming to enjoy the beach."Double yellows are only really necessary if you're offloading."
'Significant measures needed'
Alliance councillor Gillian McCollum welcomed the upcoming installation of the double yellow lines but believes "significant infrastructure measures" are needed within Seapark to accommodate the traffic.Her main concern was emergency vehicle access on extremely busy days."It creates a gridlock situation when the road is reduced to a single lane and cars then become backed up right up on to the A2 and that creates a situation where emergency vehicles would have no hope of accessing the area," she explained.McCollum added that she would like to see more beachgoers using public transport."We would like people to be mindful that this is a highly residential area and these residents have been literally plagued with this problem for several years and we would like people to be considerate," she said.
'Not a silver bullet'
Councillor Alan Graham, from the Democratic Unionist Party, said he understood the frustrations of those opposing the double yellow lines."I can imagine a mother and father with children and the hustle and bustle of getting them out of the car, getting the packs on them and not being able to get parked - it's very frustrating," he said.Graham added that the double yellow lines were not a silver bullet to the traffic bedlam."There's a tension between increasing car parking space and taking up green grass," he said. "I believe there is a balance."I would be reasonably sympathetic to extending the car park to accommodate more people."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
12 hours ago
- Times
I tried circumnavigating the UK in an electric van — here's why it was impossible
My annual circumnavigation of mainland Britain and Northern Ireland presented the perfect opportunity to try to prove that it was not only possible, but, ideally, a breeze to complete a four-week road trip in an electric van. Volkswagen thought so too, lending me an all-electric ID Buzz five-seater van, in two-tone candy white and bay leaf green, for the duration. The specs were as impressive as its surfy two-tone looks: an 84kWh battery that charged from 5 to 80 per cent in as little as 30 minutes and claimed a maximum range of up to 293 miles. The job was to survey the English, Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish coasts — a distance of some 4,800 miles — but since I had the entire month of May to complete the journey I set a maximum of 240 miles a day, leaving a minimum 53-mile safety buffer within which to find a charger for my anticipated daily 30-minute top-up. That may sound overcautious, but over the 16 years I've been doing this journey, I've seen loads of old service stations closed down, but never seen a new one open. You need apps to find chargers. A single app won't do because you can't be sure that it lists all locations, or that it will communicate with the actual charger you want to use so you can get loyalty discounts and receipts, so I downloaded Charge Assist, Electroverse, InstaVolt, Plugsurfing, Pod Point and Zapmap. They're all free, because they make their money in a variety of ways — that may include commission from charging providers, advertising or data analytics, for example — and soon their icons were crowding my phone. It was already becoming something of a faff and I wondered how useful they'd be in those parts of the nation where 5G is a popular fairytale, but, overall, I was extremely pleased with myself. I had a green van and a greener plan for a low-cost, zero-carbon road trip (if you ignore the upstream emissions from manufacture and electricity generation). That's not how it turned out. This year's circumnavigation began in Cleethorpes. I had to start it somewhere, so I started it there. My first charging experience, in the Meridian Point Retail Park, took a little longer than I expected, but I put it down to first-night nerves and used my extended stay to give the resort more of a going over than it really needed. • Revealed: the UK's 50 best beaches for 2025 Three days later, having followed the coast through Lincolnshire and Norfolk, I discovered what many electric vehicle (EV) owners already know. It was raining when I followed Electroverse's guidance to a Shell Recharge station in Woodbridge, Suffolk. The charger was a massive 300kW monster that made me wonder if I actually had time for a cup of coffee and a bun from the petrol station's food counter. I did, as it happens. I had time, in theory, for a two-bottle lunch, a chapter of Ulysses and a long kip, because a 300kW charger does not necessarily charge at 300kW. It can charge at up to 300kW, in the same way that broadband providers promise your connection will operate at up to the speed of light. Possible, in theory, but extremely unlikely. First off, few EVs can draw 300kW. The Audi e-tron, the Porsche Taycan and the Volvo EX90 are among the exceptions, but the VW ID Buzz pulls only 185kW. Second, if the battery is too cold, or too warm, you won't even get 50kW. Ditto if the battery is almost empty. Third, your charge could be slower than advertised because, er, there are other drivers charging, or it's a Monday and there are five crows perched in the lightning tree, or the cows are lying down. I didn't know this yet. I was simply excited to be plugging in, swiping my card and then watching in wonder as the output display rocketed from 5kW to 41kW. And stayed there. According to the van, it was going to take two hours and 49 minutes to reach 80 per cent. Even Dave T Dog was dismayed, but imagine how quickly the sweet summer holiday dreams of a family would sour as they roasted in a van in the hot corner of the M5's Gordano services. • 400 years of the the great British beach holiday in pictures And then another mystery arose. Because of the temperature, or some long-forgotten curse or because the moon was in Leo, the range at the recommended 80 per cent charge was now 233 miles, or 187 with the safety margin, meaning I would have to recharge twice in one day to cover the 274 miles and 18 beaches I was planning on inspecting between Woodbridge and Margate. The next day was worse. Despite beginning the day with a 90-minute top-up in a BP garage, the last 40 miles to Normans Bay felt like a scene from the 1953 film The Wages of Fear. A large part of the stress is caused by a smartarse onboard computer that, rather than simply reporting the remaining range, constantly recalculates based on how much power you're using at any given time. These fluctuations increase so-called range anxiety — or the fear of not making it to your destination — and while the AA says that running out of charge is rare, the solution is always a tow to the nearest charging point. Coming through Winchelsea in East Sussex the display said I had 31 miles' worth of power with which to make the 25 miles to my campsite, but as I climbed the steep hill at Tanyard Lane, the range dropped to 21 miles, then recalculated when I reached the flat to 27 miles. Given a signal I could have used my apps to find a late-night charger for a top-up, but my survival instinct was not that strong, and by the time I reached the Camping and Caravanning Club site, just seven miles remained. Luckily I'd paid for a pitch with an electric hook-up. Unluckily the van's plug did not fit the site's socket. Probably because I'd failed to salute a magpie earlier in the day. The next morning I crept the six miles into Eastbourne on the electrical equivalent of fumes, following the Electroverse app's directions to a high-speed charger in a Volvo dealership. How I laughed when they told me it was out of order, and how I chuckled again when I discovered that the trickle charger at the VW dealership — a tense half-mile away — would take six hours to bring me up to 80 per cent. • Revealed: 100 Best Places to Stay in the UK for 2025 I gave it an hour to get enough power to drive to Waitrose, where a 120kW charger told me it would take just three hours to fill my battery. Unless you're a student of urban decline or a fan of post-apocalyptic horror, you'll find three hours is too long to be in Eastbourne. I sat in a café one street back from the ruins of the seafront, watching as zombies lurched past. It gave me time to think. According to Zapmap, there were 40,479 charging locations in the UK at the end of June. That's five times more than the number of petrol stations, which have fallen from 40,000 in 1967 to about 8,000 today. Of the 82,369 chargers at those locations, 16,698 (20 per cent) are in the rapid or ultra-rapid band, ie those with capacity of 50kW or higher. But speed is relative. It takes about five minutes to fill and pay for a tank of petrol, meaning each pump has a throughput of 12 vehicles an hour. • Why this Northern Ireland beach is the UK's best Where you are on the road matters too — southeast England has 2,410 of the faster chargers; the northeast 594; and Northern Ireland just 190. If my van really could get from 5 to 80 per cent in 30 minutes, the charger throughput would be two EVs per hour, but since the average so far was closer to three hours per charge the true throughput would be closer to eight vehicles per 24-hour period. Fortunately EVs comprise just 4.5 per cent — or 1.5 million — of the 34 million cars on UK roads. Because most of them are charged overnight, at home, and used for average journey lengths of about ten miles, they rarely run out of charge, and their owners are unlikely to notice the massive inadequacies of the roadside charging network. After all, no one does Route 66 in a golf cart. Despite easing the pressure on car manufacturers to meet EV targets, the government still expects 28 per cent of sales in the UK in 2025 to be zero-emission vehicles. By 2030, the mandated target will be 80 per cent, rising to 100 per cent in 2035. By then, according to a 2022 report by the government's Electric Vehicle Energy Taskforce, '500,000 public chargepoints [will] need to be deployed … to provide drivers with the confidence to buy electric vehicles and the means to charge them'. • I love camping and have done for 40 years — these are my best tips But availability is one thing. The time it takes to charge is another. The 340-mile journey from Manchester to St Ives via the M5 and the A30 takes six hours in a petrol-powered car. In an EV it could take up to ten hours when you factor in two charging sessions, and how will that affect Cornwall's tourism appeal? 'We know public charging is still a concern for people who cannot charge at home or for the occasional particularly long journey on high days and holidays,' Volkswagen said. 'We continue to work to develop partnerships to improve access to charging for our customers and urge government to support the development of a national, interoperable and affordable public charging network.' Despite the challenges you, like me, may still be tempted to hire an electric van for your UK road trip. The rental agency clearly thinks you should, claiming it's budget-friendly, eco-friendly, city-friendly, quieter and encourages slow travel. The last claim is definitely true and by the time I reached Weymouth, two days later than scheduled, I knew my plan had failed. It wasn't the van's fault. The ID Buzz is the prettiest vehicle VW has designed since the T2 split-screen: a design classic begging to be customised, but I'm not sure the UK is ready for an all-electric touring van. I'd covered less than 15 per cent of the 4,800 miles and if I couldn't handle the range anxiety of the UK's soft south, how was I going to cope with the wilds of Wales and Scotland? So I admitted defeat, called VW and asked if it had anything that ran on diesel. It brought me a California camper van. It took five minutes to fill, had a range of 550 miles, an electric pop-up roof and a fridge that looked great when I loaded it with beer. That's all you need to know. But I will try again. Chris Haslam toured the UK in a Volkswagen California campervan ( Have you travelled in an electric camper van, or are you considering it? Let us know in the comments
Telegraph
a day ago
- Telegraph
Lib Dem-led council in row with motorists over double parking fines
A seaside town is the first in the country to trial doubling parking fines in a bid to tackle summer holiday traffic chaos. Incidents of rogue parking in Bournemouth include cars left on double yellow lines, pavements, verges, roundabouts and across private driveways. But visitors appear happy to take the financial hit of a £35 fine – only marginally more than car parking charges, which can cost £20 a day. Now, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council has been given permission by the Department for Transport to double their standard parking fine to match London rates, so the minimum fine will be £70, or £140 if not paid within two weeks. The move comes just weeks after the Lib Dem-led council about-turned on implementing residents' permits in the area, following a 'tsunami' of objections over the £70 cost to residents. The trial scheme will operate throughout August, which is the seaside resort's busiest time of the year. Already over 4,000 penalty notices have been issued over three 'heatwave' weekends this year. Tom Hayes, Labour MP for Bournemouth East, said: 'The parking fine fee has been capped for 20 years and it's frustrating for everyone. 'The hope is by having such a significant increase in parking fines it can really have a deterrent effect.' At the same time, the local authority will be required to provide enough legal parking spaces to cater for visitors. Residents have previously criticised BCP Council for it's 'war on motorists', after it sold a number of beach-front car parks, reduced the number of legal spaces available, and spent £3 million on cycle lanes that make access to driveways a 'nightmare'. The council insisted there are spaces available within a short walk of the seafront which have been left unused. The trial has prompted a mixed response as some residents insist the council is still not on their side. 'We will all be stung' Jim James, a resident, said: 'Finally, about time. Let's see their faces when they realise it's not a measly £30 any longer.' Another commenter posted: 'As much as locals think this is brilliant, it isn't. We will all be stung as a result. It is all about BCP making money. 'We should be welcoming visitors during the peak season and accommodating them sufficiently. 'There is not enough adequate parking as car parks are being auctioned off to the highest bidder. There are not any sufficient park and ride schemes. Local businesses will suffer as a result.' The local authority welcomed the trial as they said they had been calling for greater powers to tackle illegal parking for six years. Cllr Millie Earl, the leader of BCP Council, said: 'We welcome the fact the Government has recognised the problem we experience in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole with illegal and irresponsible parking. 'We have been asking Governments for more than six years to let us impose higher fines and our parking team now await final details on the work required to implement the trial in time for the August 1 deadline. 'Even at our busiest last weekend, there were enough parking spaces within a short walk of the seafront across our three towns and when visitors make a choice to park illegally, we know that residents, and responsible visitors, want us to take robust enforcement action. 'We want to encourage and support visitors to our wonderful area but just ask them to consider the safety of others when parking; and a level of fines that reflects the true costs of patrolling and enforcing will help us to do this.'
Belfast Telegraph
2 days ago
- Belfast Telegraph
NI agriculture department confirms items with PCB to be removed from use due to health risks
Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) are carcinogenic, man-made substances used in components of products such as electrical equipment. They were banned in 1986 under the UN Stockholm Convention. Now falling under the Environmental Protection Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2025, coming into effect July 17, equipment containing more than 0.005% of PCBs -by weight and total volume of 50mm- must be registered with the NIEA before October 31 this year. It must then be subsequently removed from use by December 31. 'Existing closed uses of PCBs include, but are not limited to, heat exchange fluids such as coolants and insulating fluids [transformer oil] for transformers and capacitors manufactured prior to 1987,' said a DAERA spokesperson. 'PCBs have been recognised globally as harmful to human health and the environment. Businesses are required to register relevant equipment annually using the PCB registration database. 'Associated guidance and fees for registration are available here. ' Additional information can be found by contacting the NIEA Chemicals Compliance Team NIEAChemicles@
