Meeting documents

Recommendations

Recommendation 1

That there be an agreed parking strategy.

Reason: To ensure that all car parks have the same sized car parking space, opening times, levels of cleanliness, provision of disabled and mother and child spaces.  To improve the number of short stay spaces and consider the possibility of free parking for the first 30 minutes of any stay over all car parks

Recommendation 2

That funding be provided for consultancy work to survey the usage of the Park and Ride.

Reason - Data was required to find out who was using the Park and Ride car park.  Currently any member of the public could use the car park and it was suspected that a majority of users were not using the park and ride bus service.

Recommendation 3

That four buses be provided for the Park and Ride rather than three as suggested by Buckinghamshire County Council, to run in conjunction with the trains to and from Birmingham/London.

Reason - BCC were currently reviewing options for the bus service to and from the Park and Ride.  This was to reduce operational costs when Section 106 funding that had helped subsidise the current route comes to an end. Four buses would provide a better service and help maintain the best route to and from High Wycombe town centre. This would also ensure the bus provision for the Park and Ride would run in conjunction with trains to and from Birmingham/London.  Although the times have been amended they were still out of sync with the trains and had no cognisance of the walking times to and from the platforms. 

Recommendation 4

To ensure that the Park and Ride remained free for people parking and then using the bus service to and from the town centre in High Wycombe.

Reason - To encourage people to use the Park and Ride service.

Recommendation 5

That the new barriers and payment system for the car park at the Park and Ride site be put in place as soon as possible.

Reason - So that charging for car park users who were not using the Parking and Ride service could be implemented.

Recommendation 6

Provide improved signage and information at the Park and Ride site regarding payment and tickets for the users of the bus service.

Reason - To provide users with the correct information and to ensure that they receive a ticket to enable free return travel.

Recommendation 7

That funding be providing for a report to be commissioned to provide information and data on the anticipated parking demand expected across the District in the future.

Reason - Due to housing requirements outlined in the Wycombe Local Plan and changing Government policy up-to-date data was required regarding future parking requirement in the District.

Recommendation 8

To investigate the use of new technologies to help assess the usage of car parks. 

Reason - New technologies would help to identify the amount and locality of users of car parks in the District.  This would enable capacity requirements for car parking to be accurately measured.

Recommendation 9

That Dynamic Parking Management apps be utilised to help identify users such as local residents or blue badge holders to enable charging to be applied accordingly.

Reason - This would enable users such as blue badge holders to access car parks with barriers easily and so that payment options would be easier to manage.

Recommendation 10

That the electronic signs in High Wycombe providing information on parking availability be updated to include all major car parks and real-time information.

Reason - Not all of the major car parks in High Wycombe were included on the current parking information signs and the information regarding number of parking spaces available was not accurate.

Recommendation 11

Issuing of on street parking permits should be limited for new build residential propertiesalong with the instigation of greater control of pavement and grass verge parking. 

(Suggested reason - new build properties in the town centre did not provide adequate parking capacity and were therefore causing issues with on street parking.Parking as a planning condition/policy would be difficult to enforce so limiting on street parking permits would be the best option to alleviate this problem).

Recommendation 12

That all surface car parks be stacked to provide additional parking capacity.

Reason - To increase car parking capacity.

Recommendation 13

That funding be provided as soon as practicable possible to stack the Park and Ride car park to provide long term airport parking as per the recently approved local plan.

Reason - Due to plans to provide a bus provision to Heathrow Airport from the Park and Ride, funding was sought with a view to bring this into place as soon as possible and as a future income stream.

Recommendation 14

That town centre car parks are refurbished.

Reason - The WDC owned town centre car parks are past their original replacement date and need to be brought up to a better standard for users.

Recommendation 15

That a co-ordinated parking strategy be created to work with partners such as Chiltern Railways, Eden and supermarkets within Wycombe.

Reason – To ensure that all partners within the town were in agreement and worked to a co-ordinated parking strategy.

Recommendation 16

To look at provision of parking at supermarkets and residential development within the town centre. To look at what control WDC had and how much WDC could influence supply.

Reason: Some supermarkets have increased their free parking time to 3 hours. There would be reference back to their Planning Permission to ascertain whether this was in line with their original Permission.