Colchester's St Mary's car park 'a known venue' for crime and racing

St Mary’s Car Park, in Balkerne Hill, Colchester, has been one of the city centre's biggest car parks since being built in the 1970s.

The facility formerly had a barrier system and would allow drivers to pay on exit, but when a new payment system came into place in 2016, the barriers were removed.

Since then, residents say the car park has become a hotspot for boy racers and drug users, with the chairman of St Mary’s Residents’ Association, Emma Dell, criticising the North Essex Parking Partnership for “fobbing off” complainants.

She said: “There used to be a boom gate which meant you had to take a ticket and pay afterwards – that was removed in 2016.

“There have been more than 260 complaints of anti-social behaviour in the car park since 2017 – we’ve even had a murder in there.

Murder – a homeless man died in the car park in 2018 (Image: Newsquest)

“When I first moved to St Mary’s, I thought it was people racing their cars up and down Balkerne Hill, but they were racing in the carpark – it’s a known venue, and offenders, as I call them, meet there because it is open all night and they don’t have to pay.

“On Saturday night, the antisocial behaviour started at 1am; these are cars which are all completely modified so they make a tremendous amount of noise.”

Residents have raised the problems through complaints to the North Essex Parking Partnership, but Emma Dell says the St Mary’s Residents’ Association has been ignored.

Central – St Mary's Car Park was built in the 1970s and has more than 500 spaces (Image: Newsquest)

“All in all, it’s a bit of a disaster and the North Essex Parking Partnership keeps fobbing us off.

“They’ve said that if you’ve got a resident’s permit then you can park there overnight, but the fact is, people won’t park there because of the anti-social behaviour – so we’re in this vicious circle.”

Colchester Council bosses have no vowed to crack down on anti-social behaviour at St Mary's car park.

A spokesman for the authority said: “We are aware of long-running instances of antisocial behaviour in St Mary’s Car Park and are working with the North Essex Parking Partnership on both monitoring this issue and considering all possible interventions.

“This includes pursuing all possible enforcement options and the collection of evidence to support any further action.

“The Vehicular PSPO was introduced in September 2022 to prevent and deter vehicle ASB across the district. To date, 27 warning letters have been issued to drivers who are believed to have committed ASB in St Mary’s Car Park.

“We are unable to pursue a breach of the PSPO without any identifiable verification. However, we liaise with our CCTV monitoring centre and will use any available, credible evidence to enforce the PSPO.

“The public can report incidents of ASB online or by emailing asb@colchester.gov.uk. Breaching a PSPO and drug activity are criminal offences and should be reported directly to Essex Police or by calling 101.

“The council is also working on longer-term interventions to resolve the issue of ASB in St Mary's Car Park. However, we need to carefully consider the extent to which mitigations are agreed and ultimately funded. We hope that any enforcement that is able to be taken will reduce the frequency of ASB in St Mary's Car Park.”