Dringhouses & Woodthorpe Lib Dem councillor Stephen Fenton has called for action to stop out-of-town coaches from clogging up suburban streets.

The start of the St Nicholas Christmas Fair has seen a surge in coach parties coming to the city. The influx of visitors is a welcome boost to the local economy, but some coach firms are failing to make use of the parking facilities provided by Make it York.

Photographed below is a coach that was parked up on The Horseshoe, off Tadcaster Road, on Saturday 18 November.

Stephen Fenton said  “When there is ample coach parking being provided, it is unacceptable that some coach firms are choosing to clog up residential streets that cannot cope with such large vehicles.

“I have raised this with Make it York, and they have confirmed that there are spaces available for coaches at the designated parking places.”

A Make it York spokesperson commented “We operate a booking system for the weekends of the Christmas Market, which involves managing a couple of sites with a team of stewards to welcome the coaches and help park. We work with Parking Services and the Highways department to ensure the huge demand for coach parking has little impact on the local infrastructure (we currently have over 400 coaches booked in over the period which is approx. 22,000 visitors). It’s disappointing that this coach company has avoided the booking system – we had space available.”