Parking restrictions proposals in a busy village branded “over the top” have finally got under way after several years of delay.

A review was launched in Hadlow in 2020, but a consultation was delayed due to Covid, and then delayed further so that a new “normal” of parking and traffic patterns could be established post-pandemic.

Tonbridge and Malling council issued a set of proposals in January for a five-week informal consulation and the authority’s Joint Transportation Board met last Monday to consider responses.

Eighty-three replies were received including one from the parish council. Of those, 38 were in favour of the proposals, 41 against, and there were five mixed responses.

Parish councillor Owen Baldock said that while the parish supported double yellow lines at the junction of Great Elms with Tonbridge Road, it couldn’t understand why it was necessary to extend them “so far down the road”.

He described the length of the proposed double yellow lines, both there and in Victoria Road, as being “over the top”.

But the council’s parking manager Andy Bracey said double yellows would only be put in for the length required to protect a junction under the Highway Code.

Residents were in general opposed to suggestions for the layby on Tonbridge Road and to no-waiting restrictions in the High Street, where it was felt essential that elderly or infirm villagers should be allowed to stop close to the shops.

Parking in some areas – for example at The Vicarge and The Terrace – was seen by the parish coucil as useful “natural traffic-calming”.

On some roads, for example Carpenters Lane and Water Slippe, views were mixed, with some in favour of more restrictions and some opposed.

As a result of the comments, the initial scheme has been revised, with some measures dropped and others lessened.

The council will now go out to an official public consultation on the suggestions, which include extending the double yellow lines in Carpenters Lane, Kenward Court, Dray Court and Tonbridge Road.

Also extending double yellow lines in Maidstone Road and Court Lane and introducing double yellow lines to Great Elms, to one side of Water Slippe, and to parts of Warren Gardens.

The dates of the consultation are yet to be announced.