A BID by residents to have dedicated parking bays beside a historic green in Selborne is dividing the village. Four residents without private parking have asked the parish council for their own parking places at The Plestor - an open space gifted to the village by Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1953 for the benefit of the inhabitants of Selborne. But many residents are against the scheme, arguing that, in the spirit of the gift, the land is meant for the whole village and not just a few people. At the same time, residents without their own parking have been driven to despair by the lack of parking spaces in the village, and have put together an argument for allowing them to take over four of the seven Plestor parking spaces. With one bay for disabled drivers, the proposal would leave only two places available for general use. Alternative parking is available in Gracious Street and in the public car park behind The Selborne Arms, but with tourists visiting the gallery, the pottery, the shops and The Wakes, which has no car park, car-owning residents near The Plestor, who have no parking of their own, believe they are a special case. A previous proposal for The Wakes to use a field, off Gracious Street, for their visitors was unsuccessful. This would have reduced pressure on parking in other parts of the village. At the moment, the field is only opened for visitors to the Unusual Plants Fair. At the village's first Community Forum held this week, Phil Aston who, with her husband, Alasdair, has lived opposite The Plestor for 26 years without any private parking, is at the end of her tether. She said: "There is no chance for us to park, except in Plestor bays. For 26 years I've lived here and there was no problem for anybody when we came here. But over the past 12 to 14 years, we have been put in a really horrendous situation and forced to drive up and down the village looking for a space. The Plestor was left to the people of Selborne, but it is anybody but the people of Selborne who are parking there. There is constant to-ing and fro-ing and constant noise. It happens all the time and our lives have become unbearable. I am close to tears on some days." Mrs Aston asked for support from the village and the parish council to solve a problem that, she says, Plestor residents cannot solve on their own. Some of the hostility to the scheme has been fuelled by an original parish council initiative to trial for six months a two-hour parking restriction for the public, with an exemption for permit-holding residents. But this trial scheme developed into a proposal for bollards and chains to fence off the four rentable parking spaces. While sympathetic to the residents' plight, Bill Oliver, a past parish council chairman, said that the plan to section off parking was "unreasonable and frankly outrageous". He said: "Just think of the potential frustration four empty, but locked, spaces would cause to both residents and visitors alike. What about the likely effect of the proposal on local businesses, including the pottery, the gallery and Gilbert White's house, or any disabled or infirm resident attending the church by car? "The privatisation of parking spaces at The Plestor goes against both the intent and purpose of Magdalen College's gift to the village. Fenced-in and locked parking spaces are not public open spaces, and leasing said parking spaces benefits only four of the many inhabitants of Selborne."
