New car park at Morpeth Railway Station on track

Work is on track to improve accessibility and create extra parking at Morpeth Railway Station.
The site where extra parking spaces are being created.The site where extra parking spaces are being created.
The site where extra parking spaces are being created.

Increased rail users and services has led to additional pressures on parking in the surrounding area.

The issue was already causing concern for many residents living close to the facility.

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Northumberland County Council has previously said that it is taking a number of steps to address the concerns and it announced this week that it has recently secured planning consent to create a new 26 space car park on land to the south of the station buildings, which will be in use by the end of the year.

The local authority is in dialogue with Network Rail to secure the use of additional land alongside its existing car park to increase its capacity.

To meet the cost of creating extra parking capacity and to help manage demand for parking spaces, the council will shortly be installing ticket machines in the county council car park at the station, with charging coming into effect from Monday, August 19.

The charges – £3 per 24 hour period and passes for various monthly periods – were approved by the council’s cabinet earlier this year, with a report saying that the proposal was supported by Morpeth Town Council and the rail user group SENRUG.

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The local authority is also reviewing its existing signs to see if they can be more prominent to deter rail users from parking in nearby residential areas.

Coun Glen Sanderson, cabinet member for environment and local services, said: “We’ve already introduced a maximum 72-hour stay restriction in our car park at the station to help tackle the issue of people ‘garaging’ cars in the station car park and prioritise the use of available spaces for daily commuters.

“The new car parking will create a great deal of extra capacity at the station and in the meantime, we’ll continue to monitor the usage of the car parks and parking behaviours nearby.

“We’ll also increase the frequency of visits by our Civil Enforcement Officers while the new arrangements bed down.”