It keeps coming up, parking and public transport links. With the dense population focused in Warsash you’d think that there would be a sufficient amount of parking places for students and a decent network of public buses for everyone? Well if you’ve been following this for long enough you’d know that there isn’t. It is rather appalling. When I ask about how we as local residents go about tackling these issues I get told one thing and then another. It’s either “Up to the council to come up with new routes” or it’s “The bus companies will make these routes if they make it commercially viable” – really? There’s pretty much only one bus company operating in Warsash, it’s hardly “free market” if there’s one company with a monopoly on the service.

The same can be said for parking, I confronted Tory Councillor Trevor Cartwright about it during a Warsash Residents’ Association meeting last month, and he said that only 6 people (way less than a percentage of people living in the area) had written to the council in support of another round of the many yellow lines he has continued to place down on the streets of my hometown – and so he ordered their placement. The Chairman at the meeting called a vote to see whether we the WRA would support Permits, and unsurprisingly no one voted in favour – one resident, rightfully, pointed out that since many of them had drives there’d be no point.

The fact is that in Eastleigh, just outside Barton Peveril (where I briefly attended in 2011-2012) they have been successful. Many students who have cars can only park there for 90 minutes before they had to move them, this is perfect for the School of Navigation as generally people would move their cars. Many residents have driveways that they are able to park cars on, overall this has a much better cost-benefit result than just the organised kettling that has been approved by the Tories.

I’m calling on residents to join with me and start the call for a better public transport network and parking. We need a bus service that works for everyone that is reliable, one that is regular to Whiteley and the Fareham Community Hospital. We need to start using some common sense in Warsash. I think it’s time to do something different, it’s time to Go Green.

Thanks for reading,

Miles Grindey

Twitter: http://twitter.com/MilesGrindey