Potential movement on the long delayed Hillfields residents' parking scheme may have taken a step in the right direction today.

At a meeting of the Cabinet Member for City Services, Cllr Dave Nellist (Socialist, St Michael's) successfully argued for a review of phase 1 of the area on which officers had been recommending "no further action" (see Public Report 5, Cabinet Member, City Services, September 20, 2011).

A plan to bring in a residents' parking scheme has been in discussion in the St Michael's Ward for some years. Pressures in the North West of the Ward have been exacerbated by the building of City College. The former Tile Hill and Butts colleges had over 800 free car parking spaces for staff and students; when they moved to the Swanswell area only 400 places were provided in a paying multi-storey car park. Surrounding streets have seen an increase in parking.

The Socialist Party organised a number of public activities in support of residents' demands for a parking scheme to cover not only that area but also the more southern part of Hillfields which has seen an increase in the city centre workers parking in the neighbourhood, rather than paying the high prices of city centre car parks. One public meeting organised by the party had 109 local people in attendance.

Local Labour councillors presented 2 petitions at the beginning of this year asking that Phase 1 of the scheme not go ahead. But it emerged today from one of the petitioners that their objection was not to the scheme itself but the fact that it finished at 6 PM, when evening parking was one of their main concerns. Councillor Nellist successfully persuaded the Cabinet Member, Lindsley Harvard, to re-survey residents in the area, rather than take no further action on that phase of the scheme.

Cllr Nellist said today "I'm grateful that the Cabinet Member agreed to continue with this scheme. It had seemed from the petitions which had been presented that more residents were against the scheme in that area than had said in the original consultation that they were in favour. But once we heard from the petitioners in detail it became clear that they, too, wanted a residents' parking scheme but they wanted it to continue into the early evening as well.

"We have money put aside from agreements made when planning permission was granted for the City College and also housing on the former football ground at Highfield Road. I'm keen to see more movement on this plan so that the success we have already achieved in the Charterhouse area, to return some sort of control over parking to local people, can now come to parts of Hillfields."