Car parking at Kemble railway station

[whole diary]

[Sapperton Tunnel]

I agree with JohnR

The additional parking could not make the fly parking worse! So do the residents parking scheme regardless of the parking not as a condition of it!

I am sorry if I am a bit thick, but I do not understand your sentence.

Apologies for not being clear.

Building a new car park will not make the fly parking any worse.  If the problem is not enough parking it could only make it better.

It is therefore perverse to link the provision of a residents parking scheme as a condition of building the car park.

A planning condition is to mitigate the impact of the development. The fly parking is as a result of the station not the extra car park! In this case, unless the car park can be shown to make the fly parking worse it is ultra vires to include such a planning condition.

If CDC refuse GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway)'s release of the condition and GWR appeal then a planning inspector would find fro GWR. 

If CDC simply wanted GWR to fund the residents parking scheme then this would have to have been done through a S106 agreement to provide the funding, but it could not bind GCC to implement such a scheme.

This is an abuse of the planning system and should be called out as such!

That said I am not unsympathetic with the residents problems. It is just that the solution as proposed does not seem to me (I am not a lawyer) to be a proper use of the planning system.

Thank you so much for making things simple for me to understand.

Firstly, there are two types of fly parkers. There are those who arrive later and genuinely cannot find a space in the car park because it is full. There are also those who fly park because they do not want to pay for their parking for whatever reason. It is these parkers in particular that cause a nuisance and both the village and GWR in good neighbour mode want to see use the new car park and GWR collect the car park fee as well.

The fly parking has been going on since the late 1980's and the car park has been expanded several times. We now have a large enough expansion where at long last a residents parking scheme is affordable within the business case for the car park. The new car park could become full in anywhere from 10 to 30 years time and without a parking scheme we could be back to square one, fly parking wise, relatively soon. The long view is being taken.

I am actually rather fond of GWR and think on the whole they do a good job. However, suppose they loose the franchise and a new company takes over who raises the car parking fees to £10 or £12 per day levels. There would be double parked fly parking then and Kemble will have one of the best skateboarding venues in the South West.   

With regards to the legality of the residents parking scheme, I am told it is entirely legal. There are numerous instances where local authorities in urban areas have created car parks and then painted double yellow lines to stop on-street parking and introduced residents parking schemes. It is entirely legal to intrinsically link the provision of a residents parking scheme to that of providing a new car park.The parking scheme is of equal rank to that of proving a new car park, not a mitigation so a Section 106 is not required.

 

[John R]

I have a lot of sympathy for the parking problems faced by the residents of Kemble. However, the conditions imposed by the council to link planning permission with a parking scheme appear unreasonable when, prima facie, the car park can only improve the situation. Surely it's for the local council to sort out the parking issues, with or without an enlarged car park?

As an aside, my local station desperately needed an expanded station car  park a couple  years ago. In that instance the council put its money where its mouth is, dipped into its pocket and paid for it, and as far as I can tell, it has solved the problems of fly parking locally.

[Sapperton Tunnel]

A residents' parking scheme seems to me to be a bit of overkill here. Apart from the costs of setting it up there is the ongoing cost of maintaining it both for the council and the residents who will have to pay for permits.  Perhaps GCC should look at schemes elsewhere where restrictions on parking in the middle of the day have achieved the same result of removing commuter parking and at much lower costs.  I am also still of the view that the condition is not valid in law and thus cannot be enforced.

The emerging local preference is to have two short periods during the day for the parking restrictions to be enforced - from around 11:00 am to 11:30 am and 2:00 pm to about 3:00 pm. This, it is thought, will eliminate 95% of fly parkers.

The same procedure has to be gone through whatever the period of the restriction and the legal, sineage and consultation costs are said to beapproximately the same. The village actually wants the 'light touch', however the GCC at the roadshow stated the operational period was to be 8:00 am to 8:00 pm and when challenged could give no good reason why - one of the reasons why their roadshow was considered a disaster.

[grahame]

I have a lot of sympathy for the parking problems faced by the residents of Kemble. However, the conditions imposed by the council to link planning permission with a parking scheme appear unreasonable when, prima facie, the car park can only improve the situation. Surely it's for the local council to sort out the parking issues, with or without an enlarged car park?

As an aside, my local station desperately needed an expanded station car  park a couple  years ago. In that instance the council put its money where its mouth is, dipped into its pocket and paid for it, and as far as I can tell, it has solved the problems of fly parking locally.

A village the size of Kemble (population under 1500) rarely has a train station at all, let alone an hourly service each way with many trains being through to London.    I suspect this might add to the value of properties within waking distance of the station rather more than "fly parking" decreases the values.  I'm not sure where this is leading me - just having the thought that there may be another element to the balance that hasn't yet been mentioned.

[Richard Fairhurst]

We have the middle-of-the-day restrictions on Church Lane and Dyers Hill, the two streets nearest to the station, here in Charlbury. They prevent residents from being able to leave their cars outside their houses (most houses in central Charlbury don't have off-street parking) and simply move the fly-parkers further into the town - particularly the bottom of Nine Acres Lane, which has become increasingly dangerous due to the number of parked cars. There was a recent case where the District Council's enforcement team prosecuted a Church Lane resident for parking outside their house during the midday period, and the case was thrown out by the court.

I would very strongly recommend against adopting such a scheme in Kemble. We would do much better here with a full residents' parking scheme, but unfortunately West Oxfordshire doesn't have the revenue to implement one thanks to their regressive free parking policy.

[Sapperton Tunnel]

I have a lot of sympathy for the parking problems faced by the residents of Kemble. However, the conditions imposed by the council to link planning permission with a parking scheme appear unreasonable when, prima facie, the car park can only improve the situation. Surely it's for the local council to sort out the parking issues, with or without an enlarged car park?

As an aside, my local station desperately needed an expanded station car  park a couple  years ago. In that instance the council put its money where its mouth is, dipped into its pocket and paid for it, and as far as I can tell, it has solved the problems of fly parking locally.

Cotswold District Council have taken a different approach to your local council. The philosophy is that if there is no railway station then there is no parking problem. There is a parking problem and therefore incumbent on the railway to help solve it. If the railway could guarantee that the car park would be free of charge for ever then again I doubt if there would be a parking problem. But they can't. So an entirely lawful condition has been included in the granting of planning permission which results in the cost going to GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway).  

[Sapperton Tunnel]

We have the middle-of-the-day restrictions on Church Lane and Dyers Hill, the two streets nearest to the station, here in Charlbury. They prevent residents from being able to leave their cars outside their houses (most houses in central Charlbury don't have off-street parking) and simply move the fly-parkers further into the town - particularly the bottom of Nine Acres Lane, which has become increasingly dangerous due to the number of parked cars. There was a recent case where the District Council's enforcement team prosecuted a Church Lane resident for parking outside their house during the midday period, and the case was thrown out by the court.

I would very strongly recommend against adopting such a scheme in Kemble. We would do much better here with a full residents' parking scheme, but unfortunately West Oxfordshire doesn't have the revenue to implement one thanks to their regressive free parking policy.

Thank you, Richard.

I will pass your comment on to the Parish Council and District Councillor as I guess posts on here are regarded as being in the public domain?

[grahame]

... I guess posts on here are regarded as being in the public domain?

Technical note.  All posts (including pictures) remain copyright of the author. However, they may be quoted onwards in critical review or comment.   You should always be AOK if you send people links to threads here, and speaking for myself I'm quite happy to be quoted in moderate chunks away from the board - happier still if I'm credited, and even happier if approached first.

Where something's posted to "Frequent Posters", "And Also", or the TransWilts Community Rail board, permission should always be sought before quoting away from here, even if the quote onward is not in public.

[ellendune]

Forgive the rambling on this as a number of posts have appeared since I started and I have tried to keep up to date with the comments.  

With regards to the legality of the residents parking scheme, I am told it is entirely legal. There are numerous instances where local authorities in urban areas have created car parks and then painted double yellow lines to stop on-street parking and introduced residents parking schemes. It is entirely legal to intrinsically link the provision of a residents parking scheme to that of providing a new car park.The parking scheme is of equal rank to that of proving a new car park, not a mitigation so a Section 106 is not required.

There is a difference between building a new road and a residents parking scheme.  

If the planning condition had been for GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) to build a access road they could build the new road at their expense without the need for the County Council to do it for them. The County Council could refuse to adopt the road (take over the maintenance of it), but the road would have been built and if that was a condition of the planning permission then they would have complied with it.  

You are correct that a residents parking scheme is perfectly legal. However GWR cannot implement a residents parking scheme because that would require a further legal instrument called a traffic regulation order (TRO^» (Trowbridge - next trains)) under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. TROs can only be made by the highway authority (in this case Gloucestershire County Council (GCC)). GWR is therefore powerless to comply with the planning condition.

If the only barrier was that GCC needed GWR to cover their costs of making the order and putting up the signs and painting the yellow and white lines, then I think this would have been covered by a Section 106 agreement.  However, residents fees would have to pay for the ongoing running costs.

A further complication is that the procedure for making such orders is set out in regulations. I am not an expert in this area but I would not be at all surprised if the regulations required GCC to demonstrate that it was necessary to make the order.  In that case GCC may not be able to make the order without the car park first being opened. That would be a catch 22.  

As an aside, my local station desperately needed an expanded station car  park a couple  years ago. In that instance the council put its money where its mouth is, dipped into its pocket and paid for it, and as far as I can tell, it has solved the problems of fly parking locally.

This seems a better solution it works elsewhere to my knowledge e.g. in Stoke Gifford near Bristol Parkway Station.   However it would still require GCC to make a TRO.  

Cotswold District Council have taken a different approach to your local council. The philosophy is that if there is no railway station then there is no parking problem. There is a parking problem and therefore incumbent on the railway to help solve it. If the railway could guarantee that the car park would be free of charge for ever then again I doubt if there would be a parking problem. But they can't. So an entirely lawful condition has been included in the granting of planning permission which results in the cost going to GWR.  

I cannot see how it can be lawful to impose a condition that the applicant has no power to comply with, particularly if GCC are unable to make the order without the car park first being opened!  

[Richard Fairhurst]

I will pass your comment on to the Parish Council and District Councillor

By all means.

[Sapperton Tunnel]

I have a lot of sympathy for the parking problems faced by the residents of Kemble. However, the conditions imposed by the council to link planning permission with a parking scheme appear unreasonable when, prima facie, the car park can only improve the situation. Surely it's for the local council to sort out the parking issues, with or without an enlarged car park?

As an aside, my local station desperately needed an expanded station car  park a couple  years ago. In that instance the council put its money where its mouth is, dipped into its pocket and paid for it, and as far as I can tell, it has solved the problems of fly parking locally.

A village the size of Kemble (population under 1500) rarely has a train station at all, let alone an hourly service each way with many trains being through to London.    I suspect this might add to the value of properties within waking distance of the station rather more than "fly parking" decreases the values.  I'm not sure where this is leading me - just having the thought that there may be another element to the balance that hasn't yet been mentioned.

Kemble is the railhead for the Cirencester, Tetbury and Malmesbury areas, plus regular commuters from as far as Fairford, Charlton Kings (Cheltenham), Birdlip, Wooton-under-Edge and Dursley.

The fly parking problems are mainly in the Housing Association (Ex Council) type houses area. Some are privately owned but the fly parking does not really affect property prices. Some of the residents are quite vocal in their opinion of the fly parkers (Posh C***s) etc.

There are a several commuters who live in the village and work in London and they just add to the mix. I think that a rural atmosphere just about still exists with most folk looking out for each other and the feeling of fly parking is one of the whole village relates to, irrespective of the value of the property and wealth of the occupant. The station does add to property values and thus increases the unaffordability for couples born and bred in the village; there is some resentment but probably not enough to disturb the 'balance' that Grahame hints at.

The Parish Council has a long term policy of slow but steady increases in the housing stock. The idea is to have sufficient population to keep the village school and shop open. The policy does get knocked sideways from time to time with developments but overall it is going in the right direction. It is not a village wanting to be kept in aspic.

[Sapperton Tunnel]

Forgive the rambling on this as a number of posts have appeared since I started and I have tried to keep up to date with the comments.  

You are correct that a residents parking scheme is perfectly legal. However GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) cannot implement a residents parking scheme because that would require a further legal instrument called a traffic regulation order (TRO^» (Trowbridge - next trains)) under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984. TROs can only be made by the highway authority (in this case Gloucestershire County Council (GCC)). GWR is therefore powerless to comply with the planning condition.

Exactly. GCC have said that they said that they will do all the necessary work and make the legal order providing GWR will foot the bill, which GWR will do as part of the planning condition. GWR have in effect a contract for GCC to do the work.

I am assured that is exactly the same obligation as when a local authority such as a District Council asks the highway authority to make a street one way, impose parking restrictions etc etc.



   

[Sapperton Tunnel]

One final post.

A phone call to someone in the know suggests that a resolution is fairly imminent with final details being worked through by officials.

GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) seem to be fairly confident of opening soon as the ticket machines were installed this last week.

[Bmblbzzz]

Somewhere upthread, the cost to villagers of Residents Parking Zone permits was mentioned. This need not be expensive at all. There's quite a range in permit prices around the country. In Bristol it's just £48 a year – less than a pound a week! – while in some London boroughs it's £150. There are similar variations in how many permits each household can apply for, treatment of driveways (Bristol lets you park on the street at the end of your drive for free, some places require a permit) and so on. It seems unlikely that prices in Kemble would be anywhere near the upper end of this scale, in fact there's nothing to stop Cotswold CC issuing them for free.

[didcotdean]

According to the Kemble Parish Council GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) are paying for two vehicle permits per household.

Having looked through a few meeting minutes the KPC is continually bothered even with residents' parking habits, as they refer to writing to miscreants parking on pavements, on narrow roads etc