Residents who live by Cardinal Newman College say parking has become a nightmare
Prestonions who live near a popular college say that their concerns about parking are being ignored.
Residents of the roads surrounding Cardinal Newman College have told the Post that parking problems caused by students have gotten out of hand in recent months.
Parking has reportedly always been a problem in this busy area but due to recent expansions at the college - both in terms of student population and physical buidings - the issue has become unbearable.
Student numbers at Cardinal Newman doubled between 2004- 2014 and have grown every year since then, the current population sitting at 4727, whilst new builds include the St John Henry building on Carr Street in 2020, St Raphael building within the grounds in 2024 and St Catherine building on the former St James car park in 2025.
Residents are now concerned about what the heavily congested roads could mean in an emergency situation and they say their complaints to both the college and the council have been ignored.
One resident, who has lived on Larkhill Street for 40 years said: “20 years ago, the main issue we had was just being able to park outside the house. But obviously, it's tos and fros, if you live around a busy area, sometimes you can't park during the day. But literally, over the last five years, as the college has expanded, it's built more buildings and it's just not adequate parking at all.
“Carr Street has always been bad. It's like opposite the college so people have always double parked there. Our main concern is, if there's a fire at the bottom of Carr Street or an emergency, no emergency services could enter from Manchester Road and now it's spread over to the opposite side, so it's on Larkhill Street as well. So basically no fire engines or ambulances will be able to come from London Road or Manchester Road. As residents we think about the worst case scenario, not just about, like, having to walk to college instead of just dumping your car outside.”
Worries about how the double parked roads cause chaos for emergency vehicles were exacerbated when the neighbourhood witnessed a tragic incident in 2022- two children living on nearby Coronation Crescent sadly died following a house fire.
Whilst residents could not name any specific incident wherein emergency vehicles could not get to a necessary scene, they did tell the Post they had seen plenty of police vans over the years attempt to go down Lark Hill Street but stop part way when they realised it was too tight.
On a less critical note, the supermarket chain Morrison's even told one resident they would no longer deliver in school hours.
As well as the double parking, students also sometimes park entirely on the curb, causing pedestrians to walk on the grass verge or even road.
The aforementioned resident told us: “Just this last week, we had an old person trying to avoid the cars. He had to walk on the grass instead of the foot path and he slipped and hurt himself. One of my neighbors called the college to just explain the situation. They just said ‘right, what do you want us to about it? It's a police matter.’ They just completely fob us off.
“It's just a very frustrating situation for us now, because as it's escalating, we're trying to advise the students, like ‘listen, you can't be parking on the curb, it's called a nuisance’ and they just turn out and say ‘what else can we do? Where else can we park?’ And like, without getting confrontational with people, it's really hard to put your point across.”
Approached by the Post, Lancashire Police stated that the parking issues would actually be a council issue.
Indeed residents say that as well as complaining to the college constantly over the past five years, they have also reported the issue to Lancashire County Council on numerous occasions but nothing has ever been done.
Reportedly part of the issue is that if parking fines were to be handed out by the council, they would have to be given to all cars parked on the curb -and residents on the terrace street have been used to parking on one side of the street for decades.
“It’s just etiquette”, says the resident, “students are coming from out of the area, parking in the area, having no respect for the people that live there. Just parking their car isn’t the issue, it’s the excess. The college needs to be educating the students and giving them adequate parking. If this was a work scenario, we'd be getting told to car share or take the bus. There's a massive car park on Queen Street, which costs £1 a day, and students are just refusing to do that. It's just very frustrating.”
In a statement, Cardinal Newman’s Principal Nick Burnham said: “The College recognises the concerns of the local community regarding parking in the surrounding area and we are committed to working collaboratively to address any issues that arise. We have daily reminders to our students to be mindful and respectful of our neighbours when parking near the College. We also respond promptly to any reported concerns by contacting students and asking them to move their vehicles where necessary and also speak to them directly about the impact of their actions.
“The College has a student car park, which operates on a first-come, first-served basis, and the area is very well served by public car parks, which we encourage our students to use. It should be noted that the vast majority of our students use public transport to get to college. In addition, our College wardens help manage safe movement in the areas surrounding the campus, including monitoring parking activity.
“We are fully supportive of the introduction of resident-only parking on streets around the College and will continue to campaign for the development and implementation of such a scheme.”
A spokesman for Lancashire County Council meanwhile said: “We understand the frustration residents feel when vehicles are parked in a way that is dangerous or obstructive, particularly where this affects pedestrians or access for larger vehicles.
“Lancashire County Council is responsible for enforcing parking restrictions on the public highway, including where vehicles are parked on double yellow lines. In situations where parking is dangerous, prevents access or causes any kind of highway obstruction including footways is a matter for the police.
“Residents can report parking restriction problems to the county council, and these reports help us identify where enforcement may be needed.
“Where there is obstruction, as noted by your report this needs to be reported to the police using Report antisocial behaviour | Lancashire Constabulary."
Parking issues also came to life at a recent council meeting held to discuss more - now approved -expansion plans at Cardinal Newman College which you can read more about here.