Kerbside car sales under fire

Lewis Avenue, just off the busy Glyne Gap roundabout, is a quiet street that's become the constant venue for opportunistic car sales and illegal street trading.

Locals say the practice is turning Lewis Avenue into "an eyesore and a danger".

Police are monitoring the situation and have not ruled out towing cars away.

Passers-by can expect at any time to see two or three cars offered up for sale and residents claim this results in huge problems for the immediate area.

They are complaining that the path becomes blocked when cars are parked across the dropped kerb, meaning difficulties for pedestrians and schoolchildren who cannot then cross.

"It does look awful but it's the danger aspect that worries me," comments one neighbour who prefers not to be named "because we are fearful round here.

"I worry for the safety of children and old people most of all ... sometimes these cars are parked right up over the lowered pedestrian path beside the roundabout and you cannot see oncoming traffic. I have seen people turn back rather than cross and I would do the same. I pray there need not be a fatality before something is done about this.

"If you complain you are shunted from agency to agency - you go to the police, then to Rother District Council, then to Trading Standards.

"In desperation I approached Hastings Council who dealt with a similar problem close by, when cars were being sold at the lay-by near The Bull up the Bexhill Road.

"They simply put a sign up which bans street-trading and the problem was solved. And yet Rother District Council won't spend a thousand pounds to do the same thing here. It's all down to the council to sort this out."

Mother of three Justine Head lives on Lewis Avenue and has to deal with continual interruption from would-be buyers.

She said: "They knock on my door all the time because they think I must be the owner. I've had enough. There has been banging on my door at ten o'clock on a Sunday evening.

"But nobody will do anything ... the police can't act because the cars are taxed and there are no double yellow lines, and the Council don't do anything because they won't spend the money to change the law and uphold it.

"It's causing real problems for people. An elderly lady fell out of her wheelchair because the lower kerbside was blocked, and she was lying there in the middle of the road surrounded by her shopping.

"Then there's the schoolchildren from Glyne Gap school - they've all got younger brothers and sisters in buggies so it's a nightmare for the school drop-off.

"And at Christmas a driver slowed down on the roundabout to get a good look at a car and another vehicle collided from behind."

It's her belief that the cars are the property of just one seller. "He changes the cars around, and puts different mobile numbers for people to ring but I've noticed the same numbers coming up."

Sgt Paul Masterson of the Road Policing Unit at Bexhill says police have received many complaints; "It is an offence under the Road Traffic Act to sell a vehicle from the highway.

"We don't want to start towing cars away but our priority has to be road safety, and particularly the safety of pedestrians and school children.

"Some days parties from Glyne Gap School going to the Leisure Pool have to turn back because they can't get to the dropped kerbs."

"There are a lot of people involved. There doesn't seem to be a pattern. Lewis Avenue is popular because the cars can be seen from the roundabout. But we don't want drivers' attention diverted like this on a major junction where we get enough accidents as it is."