No easy fix to Kelso’s parking issues, meeting told

That’s according to Kelso councillor Simon Mountford who last week described the situation as having “no easy solution”.

He says that Police Scotland’s council-led community action team, responsible for parking patrols across the region, is struggling to deal with the town’s parking problem.

“When they do visit Kelso, because we have a two hour parking limit it takes three hours to go around and clock everybody. 
“They give drivers a reasonable amount of overstay.

“They have not got the time to spend three hours in Kelso and it’s because we have a very generous parking time allowance - which is more than any other town in the Borders.”

Community councillors described the problem of long-stay parking in the town’s Bridge Street as “still horrifically bad” and urged councillors to encourage the police team to make it a priority.

“The team are aware that Bridge Street is an issue,” Mr Mountford assured. “All I am explaining is that there’s not an easy solution because of resources.”

“They do book people on yellow lines in Haymarket and Woodmarket – that’s not the problem.”

Council chairman Dean Weatherston also raised the issue of town centre residents parking their cars in the street for up to one week at a time and urged members to report such incidents to the police.