Why Sharjah is closing areas used as free parking by residents

The Sharjah Municipality announced earlier today that it has closed as many as 30 illegal sand parking lots since the beginning of the year.

The municipality, teaming up with the Sharjah Police, has been carrying out a massive drive across the city to shut down sandy areas used for free parking.

A top official has now explained why are shutting the so-called kaccha parking lots.

The crackdown was undertaken after it was found that negative practices were rampant in these areas. Some people were misusing these spaces and leaving their vehicles there for long periods of time, thereby sullying the aesthetic look of the city.

Khalid bin Falah Al-Suwaidi, assistant general manager of the customer service sector, pointed out that these areas distort the city's appearance because they lack proper parking standards.

"There are no corridors and vehicles are parked randomly, which creates a lot of chaos. Haphazard parking blocks the way. Motorists who try to move their vehicles out call the police and a lot of time is wasted to solve the problem. Some vehicles also get damaged as little space is left between cars."

Ali Ahmed Abu Ghazin, director of the public parking department, said that the campaign started from Al Nahda after ensuring that there were sufficient public parking lots. The number of parking lots provided in the area by the municipality last year reached over 7,500, while there are 2,500 private parking areas. This is in addition to over 2,000 parking spaces for residential buildings.

The municipality places notice on the parked car about the closure of the sandy area. It tells the car owner to remove his vehicle within three days. The cars that are not moved out are treated as abandoned vehicles and confiscated.

He said that during inspection, the officers detected that people dump garbage and discard furniture in these sandy places. These are also used by anti-social elements to carry out their nefarious designs.

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