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Dismay as Parking Reform is Rejected
December 6, 2005 12:00 AM
Town centre residents reacted with dismay to the rejection by the Conservative majority on the Borough Council's Environment Scrutiny Committee of measures intended to protect residents' parking in Guildford. Liberal Democrat councillors Gordon Bridger (Holy Trinity) and David Goodwin (Friary & St. Nicolas) had proposed changing planning policies to insist that developers provided sufficient parking spaces on site when any new houses or flat are built, with at least one space per unit in the town centre, and more for developments further out where public transport is poor. This would be linked to a change of policy for on-street parking permits, so that residents of newly-built houses or flats would not be eligible for residents' parking permits.
Moving the motion to the Committee, Cllr Rupert Sheard (Lib Dem, Friary & St Nicolas) said "Residents' parking is an ever-growing concern in the town centre, where there is increasing pressure on our already cramped streets. The aim of this motion is to hold the line, to make sure the situation doesn't get any worse."
After a lengthy and at times heated debate, the motion was effectively rejected by a Conservative amendment which simply proposed yet another review, and relied on supplementary planning guidance to seek sufficient parking in new developments, rather then a change to planning policy.
Cllr Sheard said after the meeting "I am deeply disappointed that the Conservatives saw fit to water down this motion so that it's now almost meaningless. They were invited to take decisive action, but have refused to do so. The main people to suffer from this will be residents faced with an ever increasing struggle to park within a reasonable distance of their homes."
Cllr Bridger added "This motion sought to be fair to everyone. Residents of newly-built homes would have parking spaces provided by the developer, and residents of existing homes would not face parking overflowing from the new high-density developments being built in the town centre. I'm very sad that the Conservatives have failed to tackle this growing problem."
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