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7 hours ago
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An MP has called for action on irresponsible parking at Peak District beauty spots that he says is being fuelled by a TikTok craze.
Jon Pearce, the Labour MP for High Peak in Derbyshire, said people had been flocking to the area to see the sunrise and sunset at Mam tor.
Roads have been affected by the increase in visitors – with a number of incidents of bad parking making headlines in recent weeks. On 11 January, gritters were blocked from accessing the road at Rushup Edge, close to Mam tor, by about 200 doubled-parked cars.
“I understand a lot of the issues we’re having at the moment is because there’s a TikTok craze for going and seeing sunrise/sunset on Mam tor and that’s caused the peak in the parking issues we’ve got at the moment,” Pearce told the BBC. “But that has at least given us the heads-up that we’ve got to be prepared for the summer.”
In a letter addressed to the Peak District national park, Derbyshire county council, Derbyshire police and High Peak borough council, Pearce said the “increasingly untenable parking situation” had escalated since early February.
“Living in the Hope valley, I am personally aware of the issues but the volume of complaints from my constituents continues to rise,” he said.
“Residents are rightly alarmed that current parking restrictions are failing to deter motorists from parking irresponsibility.”
His letter said solutions could involve stronger enforcement measures such as higher fines for illegal parking, improved signage and a review of possible expansion of parking infrastructure.
A Derbyshire county council meeting earlier this week heard that boulders could be placed on either side of the road near Mam tor to help curb the illegal parking.
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The Labour councillor Damien Greenhalgh said the issue was a significant one: “The road had to be closed in the winter and when you have got blue-light services affected, trying to save a life, that is when you know there is a problem.
“It really feels like the escalation is significant and it is not a one-off, it is persistent. The fines are from a series of days where we have managed to hand out 300 or 400 tickets in a day.”
A Peak District national park authority spokesperson said: “The concerns raised by Jon in his letter are issues we have been focused on for some time, along with the many stakeholders required in tackling these complex challenges. The priority of the national park management plan is to create an ‘area management’ style approach, but also back this with a clear evidence base of accurate and timely data.”
