RESIDENTS are one step closer to getting their sought-after parking permits after the council agree to support their request.

People living in South Avenue have made repeated calls to Lyme Regis Town Council to have resident-only parking restrictions put in place along the road, the same scheme operating in Anning Road.

Councillors previously turned down requests from the residents after concerns were raised by those living in Anning Road that the online-only system that manages the permits allows people who do not live there to buy permits to park there and that it wasn’t enforced.

Residents of South Avenue have continued to press the town council for the permits - as Dorset County Council as the highway authority will not consider the request without the support of the town council - and a petition was signed by everyone who lives there.

Cllr Stan Williams said: “I think it is quite dreadful, you talk to all the Anning Road people and they will tell you what a disaster it is – it just doesn’t work.”

Cllr Michaela Ellis, Mayor of Lyme Regis, agreed and said: “I have been speaking to people along there [Anning Road] and that is part of the reason we turned it down, but we are being asked by these people and they really, really want it.

“If they want it then I think we have got to go for it and deal with the problems if that is the way it happens.

“As a council, they are the people who put us here – we need to vote for it.”

Cllr Brian Larcombe said he had no problem with the permits and felt the council should support it, but he wanted to make very clear that the town council is not the administrator of the system.

Cllr Jeff Scowen said that members should have talked about it more thoroughly before rather than delaying it.

He said: “It has come to us again It has come to us again because Cllr Reynolds has got every single person in favour of a permit in South Avenue.

“Of course people are going to want a permit and I bet you if you did every street in the town you would get every resident agreeing.

“Maybe for the future we should have thought it through or even done the survey ourselves. The result would have been that everybody wanted it and then we could have come up with, what I think we are saying now, let them have it.

“I don’t have a problem with everyone having a parking permit and let them find out all the difficulties, but with respect to members, myself included, we should have thought this through and let them have it.”

Cllr Scowen also suggested including other streets as other residents were likely to ask for the same thing.

Cllr Steve Miller said: “This is democracy in action. The residents down there are aware of the limitations these permits may or may not provide and the fact that South Avenue does run straight on from Anning Road is a big leader to us agreeing with it.

“I would like us to agree a recommendation that allows us to go forward and recommend permits for South Avenue.”

Members agreed to support a request to Dorset County Council to consider introducing parking permit controls in South Avenue as an extension to the scheme in Anning Road.