Councillors have reduced double yellow lines to fix road’s problems
CATHAYS residents have expressed frustration at councillors’ attempts to solve parking issues on Rhymney Street by reducing the double yellow lines on the road.
Double yellow lines were painted on Rhymney Street in 2019 to stop parked cars obstructing the road, but Cathays councillor Norma Mackie said it was still a problem.
“At first, cars were parking right up to the end of the street where it’s blocked off.
“And then some cars were going around them and up over the bit where it’s blocked off to park.
“So to try and stop that happening they put yellow lines down, but they made them too big.
“So we asked them to reduce them to keep some more of the parking spaces.
“The double yellow lines are there to stop the road being blocked, because you couldn’t turn round. Instead, you had to reverse all the way out.”
Although the double yellow lines have been reduced, residents still have problems with parking on the street.
Max Clutterbuck, 24, moved to Rhymney Street in November, and works as the head registered nurse at a veterinary clinic in Dinas Powys.
He says that, although he has a permit, there is nowhere for him to park when he arrives home from work because of the double yellow lines.
He has had to pay over £200 in fines because of this, and once received four fines in one week.
“They’ve increased the amount of traffic officers they have going up and down.
“So not only is the parking as bad as it was, but also there’s a greater amount of tickets being given out on a daily basis because we’ve got more wardens.
“It’s a really wiggly road and it looks that way because there are these areas of extended pavement that are meant for parking.
“But what they’ve now done is that some of those areas of extended pavement that normally cars would be able to park on, they’ve surrounded the outside of the kerbs of those with double yellows.
“You would think that because the double yellow lines are on the side of the pavement that just means you can’t pull up next to the side of the road and park there.
“But actually, what it means is that they don’t want you parking on these extended bits of pavement where the cars have always parked on Rhymney Street,” said Mr Clutterbuck.
Francis Spragg, 72, also lives on Rhymney Street and said that, despite the double yellow lines, the road is still too narrow.
“I’ve seen the fire brigade get stuck three times, I’ve seen bin lorries reversing out because they couldn’t manoeuvre,” said Mr Spragg.
Mr Spragg also said that because so many cars park on the pavement, sometimes people in wheelchairs have to move onto the road to get down the street.
“People don’t seem to understand that you should leave a bit of space to let the fire brigade or an ambulance through,” he added.
In the long term, Cathays councillors are hoping to re-build the road entirely.
Coun Mackie said: “It’ll cost an awful lot of money, but ideally what we want is to take out the horizontal parking that they’ve got and just have normal parking like a normal street.
“We’d prefer that but it would cost an awful lot of money and it would be an awful lot of work to change it.
“In the short term the solution is to make those yellow lines shorter. People who live down there hate the road, they hate the parking.
“They hate every car that comes down there. There isn’t enough parking for residents. It’s a nightmare.”
