Falmouth sea front parking restrictions to tackle van dwellers

At a meeting of Falmouth Town Council's finance and general purposes committee on Monday, Cllr Laurie Magowan gave an update on a working party set up to tackle the problem.

This van appeared to have been abandoned

The working party had its first meeting in October 2021 and involved local residents, town councillors and officers and the van dwellers themselves. However he said it had been a struggle to get the van dwellers to attend. Cllr Zoe Young said it was because some of the van dwellers, particularly the women, felt intimidated.

This lorry appeared to have someone living in it

The aim of the working party, he said, is to come up with solutions after concerns were raised by local residents because of the growing number of van dwellers living along Cliff Road and Boscawen Road.

He said they were looking at the impact on residents and businesses and the reasons why the van dwellers were there, whether it be homelessness, people on holiday, students or real mix of reasons.

Vans parked on Falmouth sea front

A survey interviewed 30 people by walking up and down an talking to the residents to find out why they were in a van and why in Falmouth and to have a better understanding of what's going on.

He said there had been some forthright views by unhappy residents about the impacts of parking and the potential impact on the environment as a small number of people were using bushes as toilets.

Vans parked on Falmouth sea front

He said there were some access issues using public toilets and this may be resolved by extending opening hours.

"A lot of people are there for different reasons and the solutions for how Falmouth might manage it are really quite varied including looking at alternative sites and other things they could do," he said.

Vans parked on Falmouth sea front

He said the group had been researching other areas to see what they were doing including Newquay, Hastings, Totnes and Bristol City Council.

Options for local sites included Swanpool, Falmouth Rugby Club, Ponsharden and Ships and Castles. All faced various challenges, he said.

This Land Rover and caravan were parked on a single yellow line

The University of Exeter had £5,000 for research over next few months to find about more about the causes and reasons, as some of the students were van dwellers.

He said it was a constant requirement to tell people to manage their campers better to get them off the main sea front if possible.

Vans parked on Falmouth sea front

There had been work towards a community action network panel application for a traffic restriction order as well signage to say no overnight parking.

It had been approved and was now going to the next stage for detailed design and then to public consultation for Cliff Road and Boscawen Road.

"It is aimed at a vehicles over three half tons which have clearly been adapted to live in," he said. "It's a potential compromise that doesn't effect people just parking their normal cars but clearly identifies some vehicles that can't park there."

It could, for example, be between eight in the morning and eight in the evening

He said it was the "carrot and the stick" approach with restrictions whilst exploring other sites to park up.

Vans parked on Falmouth sea front

But town mayor Steve Eva said all the solutions faced potential problems.

"I think the biggest problem and the biggest complaint I get is the state of the vans," he said. "Some of the vans are quite pleasant and made an effort with and then another van in which they have made no effort at all and have been quite abusive to people. I can understand trying to sort out the problem with housing but, if you brought in have no overnight parking, who's going to enforce it? They don't even enforce it now.

"You talk about extending the toilet service, that would be another cost on the town council with someone having to look after them 24 hours a day and, as we have experienced, vandalism."

When the Packet went down to the sea front first thing on Monday morning, there were a large variety of vans parked up along the seafront, one seemingly abandoned.

There were clear signs people were sleeping overnight with curtains drawn and covers over front windscreens. One, which looked like a truck with the tail board down, was also clearly being lived in.

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The Packet spoke to one of the van dwellers who had driven down from Dorset that night to visit friends for a few days and was parked up on Cliff Road.