Afternoon and evening parking restrictions at Strand on the Green to be reviewed

Image: Thames Road, where there are afternoon and evening parking restrictions as well as morning restrictions

Residents want restrictions on Brentford FC match days only, not all the time

Residents on Strand on the Green are happy that Hounslow Council has agreed to look again at the parking restrictions at Strand on the Green. The residents’ association organised a petition last year which gathered more than 420 signatures requesting that afternoon and evening restrictions should be applied on Brentford FC’s match days only.

Throughout Grove Park and Strand on the Green parking restrictions were introduced several years ago between 10am and 12pm, to stop people coming into the area to park their cars and catch the train into London or go to Heathrow.

“When I first took over as general manager of the Bell and Crown you couldn’t park anywhere,” Fiona Sparkes told The Chiswick Calendar. “We are very happy with the morning restrictions.”

It is the afternoon and evening restrictions which have affected their business.

“The evening periods from 6 – 8pm and afternoons on weekends from 2 – 4pm are exactly when people want to eat. They turn up, realise they can’t park, so they go further down the road looking for a parking space and are ten minutes late for their booking, or they give up and we lose the booking.”

Amazingly, they have had customers who have received parking tickets who have expected the pub to pay for them.

While home matches at Brentford’s new stadium have brought the pub a great deal of extra business, and takings are generally up, Fiona reckons they have lost 10 – 15% potential trade because of the afternoon and evening restrictions.

Image: Bell & Crown riverside pub at Strand on the Green

“What we are requesting is that the additional time restrictions in this area are applied on Brentford match days only,” Ann Collins, Chair of Strand on the Green Residents Association (SOGA), told The Chiswick Calendar.

“This is how LB Richmond deal with events at Twickenham, Kew and Brentford. The current, every day application of these times has put an extra burden on residents who have guests visiting them for lunch/dinner, as visits are generally skewed towards these times.

“It has also put an extra burden on the pubs and restaurants. It has resulted in non-resident car parking being displaced to the adjoining zone all the time, which is a much bigger burden than it would be for match days only.”

Strand on the Green – Photograph of the day by Bridget Osborne

Image: View looking east from Strand on the Green

The Council has now promised a consultation on the additional afternoon and evening parking, to be held in the summer. At SOGA’s agm last week, Ann thanked Riverside councillors Gabriella Giles for her input on the issue, and Amy Croft for presenting the residents’ petition to the Council.

“It will make a massive difference to us if they do manage to get it changed to match days only,” Fiona told us.

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