HAMPTON College student Luke Gould said everyone should be able to enjoy North Beach and Hampton Beach, regardless of whether they can afford to feed parking meters.
He s concerned a decision by town leaders to make parking along town roads at the beach resident-only will deny people that opportunity.
“I have spent a lot of my early years at the beaches, said Gould. Just seeing how this might affect, as far as costs, other people from being able to attend the beach concerns me.”
Gould, a University of New England student and Exeter resident, was one of several who called into Monday’s selectmen meeting in response to the board’s decision three weeks ago to make all town beach roads resident-only parking.
Seacoast NH beach parking 2021: What s back to normal, what s changing
Angeljean Chiaramida
From Rye to Seabrook, many of last summer’s COVID-19-related parking restrictions are expected to be lifted for this year. But that doesn’t mean things are completely back to pre-pandemic parking status for beachgoers along the Granite State’s short coastline.
During the 2020 tourist season, to prevent the spread of the potentially deadly coronavirus in crowded situations, both state and local authorities used parking restrictions to limit the number of people congregating along the Seacoast.
Working with the region’s police chiefs, the state banned all parking along the entirety of state-owned coastal Route 1A in Rye, North Hampton and Seabrook. The state closed its parking lot in Seabrook completely. New Hampshire also reduced the available parking spaces at state-owned beaches in Hampton, North Hampton and Rye, with enforcement of the new rules by both state and local authoriti