Consultation – Draft Parking Standards for New Developments Supplementary Planning Document - 071122 SC - keep Ampthill Parkway Station 'alive'!

Consultation – Draft Parking Standards for New Developments Supplementary Planning Document - 071122 SC

Good afternoon,

 

We are writing to inform you that an eight-week consultation on the Parking Standards for New Developments Supplementary Planning Document will begin at 10am on Tuesday 8^th November 2022, with the deadline for comments being 10am on Thursday 5^th January 2023.

 

Background

A well planned and managed approach to parking can help make our local communities better places to live, work and visit whilst helping deliver our commitment to tackling climate change. One of the ways in which we can make a positive difference is through effective parking provision for all vehicle types in new developments. We want to encourage more walking and cycling for shorter journeys, and for longer journeys encourage more sustainable options such as using public transport. Ensuring that routes are attractive and useable for pedestrians and cyclists is key to achieving this.  Providing sufficient parking for all types of vehicles so that parked vehicles do not dominate the street scene or prevent access for pedestrians and cyclists is therefore very important.

 

Parking Standards for New Developments is a new Supplementary Planning Document (SPD) which builds upon the parking related policies adopted in the Local Plan. The document covers cycle parking, car parking, disabled parking, powered two-wheeler parking and operational parking requirements. It sets out the number of parking spaces required for new developments in both residential and commercial settings. The document brings together several existing standards into one document. Detail is provided on the types of parking that the Council wants developers to provide and the types of parking that have proven to be less successful and will therefore not be accepted.

 

Details of the Consultation

An electronic copy of the draft document and details of how to respond to the consultation will be available to view on the Consultations page of our website, once the consultation begins on the 8^th November at 10am.

 

Alternatively, a printed copy of the draft document can be viewed at every library in Central Bedfordshire, during their usual opening hours. Written responses can be sent to:

 

Strategic Transport, C/O Strategic Growth

Central Bedfordshire Council

Priory House, Monks Walk

Chicksands, Shefford

Bedfordshire, SG17 5TQ

 

Kind regards,

 

Strategic Transport Team

 

Central Bedfordshire Council, Priory House, Monks Walk, Chicksands , Shefford, Bedfordshire, SG17 5TQ

Direct Dial 0300 300 8860 -  Internal 78860 – Email – Strategic.Transport@centralBedfordshire.gov.uk

 

Please engage and wade in and support us where you feel you may: 

Dear Colleagues,

 

ERTA main interest is regarding protection of lands and an incremental progression to fostering a new Railway Station alias Ampthill Parkway Station. This would help mop up traffic and parking issues emanating from developments across a wider geographic area upwards of 70, 000 population plus the feed off the M1 via A507 to Flitwick. The configuration of roads at Flitwick with a triple stack car park does not lend to easy road spill proliferation and congestion, hazards and delays are likely amidst the chaos of turning out and commuting growth to. Wixams will deal with populations imminent and north of including parts of North Bedfordshire via bypasses, so all at and south of Wixams including the extensive Marston Vale, in bids to get rail to London will commute south - landing at Flitwick. Ampthill could share the load and more evenly distribute the growth in the Central Beds area as well as regenerate and inform sustainable footfall, spend and cycling/walking options in and around Ampthill as a place in its own right. Not all have or want to be tied to cars and parking with no spare land is an acute issue only to be exacerbated in coming years. Elsewhere, reviewing parking at local stations on Marston Vale, East Bedfordshire is also worth bearing in mind and avoiding parking on verges west of Arlesey Station should be avoided. Developing is sprawling fast and so we need a commitment to protect lands and work with us to nurture the ground-level conditions for an Ampthill Parkway Station. In leisure terms, the scope is Wrest Park to the East and Woburn to the West and all in between. Better cycle provision for central Flitwick to/from central Ampthill should be looked at. Our ERTA Ampthill-Flitwick Transport Forum is open to all to discuss these things - see our website for details: https://ertarail.co.uk/events/ We do need a greater appreciation of these things in general, not just specific development related. Unless we protect lands west of the Midland Main Line and adopt policies to negotiate relocation packages to the east of Midland Main Line north of Froghall Road, east of Fordfield Road and West of A507 - keeping accesses 'open', we throw away any Flitwick relief, growth absorption and compound issues, not ameliorate them. Thank you.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Richard Pill

ERTA Chairman

COP27 demands we need modal shift facilitated by redirecting existing funds

Our member, Mr Simon Barber has written to England's Economic Heartlands/EEH with some ideas of what taking COP27/modal shift from road to rail to help meet emissions reduction targets by the date for irreversible change of 2030, not pie-in-the-sky 2050. That gap is not lost on us, but we need professionals and organisations with Government support and permission, to start evaluating the potential contributions local rail-based schemes and connectivity could offer and inform more by rail. The M1 is about 50% juggernaut lorries, likewise A14, so that did not come about overnight by accident, the local rail closures happened, the investment in roads went in and the market used what was available as more of the same informed costs coming down. Now we have a good reason to switch back to rail, the tracks no longer exist, so new ones need nurturing. It is not about panaceas, but a line-side plan for every initiative and other regions need to be drawing up similarly their own plans like South West, South East, East Anglia, North West, North East and the West and East Midlands, Wales and Scotland. Government has a pivotal role, but it needs to make the conditions of 'can do' apparent and for that, at no extra cost, it has absolutely no excuse, it has been heading in the wrong direction and knowingly so. How to turn the 'ship' around? 

re: https://www.englandseconomicheartland.com/ 

The English Regional Transport Association (ERTA) is a voluntary membership-based, pro-public transport improvement association with its main projects initially in Bedfordshire and surrounding regional areas but its remit has since increased since several of its projects have a nation-wide positive benefit and impact.

ERTA Website: https://www.ertarail.co.uk

One of the reasons that I am contacting your organisation is that you are involved with building and serving public-private business community networks, including the launch of Runways UK (with the UK Airports Commission), Tomorrows Rail and finally Highways UK. Apparently you are now also hosting the Conference for England's Economic Heartlands, which is one of the several Strategic Transport Bodies.

As regards England's Economic Heartlands are concerned, the ERTA calls for better rail links which are as follows:

East-West Rail Link - the Central Section must be completed before 2030 at the latest, ideally even earlier.

Great Central (Calvert-Brackley-Rugby-Lutterworth-link existing Nuneaton-Leicester line at Narborough)

Northampton-Market Harborough

Bedford-Northampton (particularly Brackmills which is an industrial estate in Northampton)

Luffenham Curve (linking Midland Main Line eastward with Leicester-Peterborough line)

Northampton - Wellingborough

Banbury-Northampton (Northern Arc) needs to link with the Great Central somewhere in the Woodford Halse area.

Midland Main Line electrification(already in delivery)should be extended beyond Market Harborough to Leicester/Nottingham/Derby/Sheffield

The Southern Arc should involve the re-opening of both the disused St.Albans Abbey - Hatfield and Watford - Croxley lines.

Transport Orientated Development - both the Mass Transit systems for Milton Keynes and Cambridge are top priorities. As regards Milton Keynes,its Council's Mobility Strategy Infrastructure Delivery Plan 2018-2036 had proposed a Light Rail Transit. In addition the old Wolverton - Newport Pagnell railway should be reopened and much of the original track-bed survives. As regards Cambridge,the Mass Transit system should be a Metro which should not go underground since this could bring more cars onto Cambridge's roads, many of which are not designed to modern standards.

I would also like to add that the delivery of the rail components must be made at the earliest opportunity to meet Climate Change targets.

Finally, I do not support the Oxford-Cambridge Expressway since it will bring no benefit at all to the England's Economic Heartlands. This new road will affect Green Belt areas,and will also be an incentive to build new housing and will not solve traffic congestion at all,and in fact,the road will bring in more traffic which is already increasing with the significant housing growth between these two towns.This increase in traffic will in turn increase CO2 emissions and also air pollution(a serious health emergency),both of which the Government is pitifully

I would have liked to have gone to the Conference this coming Wednesday but sadly this date clashes with the ERTA's Executive Committee meeting which is now being held every two months.

For comments, interest and offers to help, please contact Mr Simon Barber: Mr Simon Barber, 20 Fitzherbert House, Kingsmead, Richmond, Surrey, TW10 6HT

T. 0208 940 4399 E. simon4barber@gmail.com

Send also to: English Regional Transport Association (ERTA) Department for Transport HM Treasury Rishi Sunak Jeremy Hunt

This is what we could expect if we top-slice the £27 billion new roads budget and pep up the mere £500 million Rail Reopenings Budget to parity or tip in favour of rail for modal shift.

The date 2030 is relevant, 2050 is too far away for delivery and you work it back from there. No movement, no money, no concessions using existing funds, not new ones, shows intransigence and a failure to grasp what modal shift demands. This is the problem and needs addressing.

Handing out under 65's bus passes, would give people more options to car dependency, cut congestion and inform more bus usership, making the case to retain routes. We have the frameworks, we are ideologically stalling from putting them to productive use and that is where a sea-change is required. How do we get there? ERTA plants ideas, we need champions to progress towards delivery.

Doing what we may do - This is a time for action!

As COP27 gets under way in Egypt, we may think global, but to get anything done, as per a rudder with a ship, we need to think and act local and export best practice. 

Britain once had the most comprehensive and integrated public transport system in the world. Post-war it was systematically disintegrated and closed down. Instead we invested in oil, roads, aviation and these interdependent on cheap fuel procurement.

Now we have a demand for cutting fossil fuel, road and aviation dependency and a call for investing in renewable energy and in a nutshell another paradigmatic shift.

Left in abstract with news of catastrophic weather and other 'climate change signs' beit excess temperatures and casualties in such wakes alongside wars and competitiveness for survival of the fittest, it is easy to forget what we could be doing to incrementally cut emissions and reduce the problems anyway, now.

Rail reopenings from a local solution basis have a. exceeded expectations in Scotland and Wales and we need them in England too. Problem is, old rail routes and urban area junctionings have been allowed to be lost and no alternative access retained in many cases. Some could be recovered, but new-build with new out-of-town boundary junctions would be required with deviations. Compensation packages and relocation can be done, but of course, all adds to cost and upheaval. The greater good may require it if we want to give rail choices and alternatives to road dependency and congestion with associated emissions and pollution affecting and taking a toll on public health, which then commutes to a queue and cost to the NHS for example.

I attach our newsletter of the missing gap between Bedford and East Anglia, many others exist. Can we learn lessons and do better? The success of reopening to Okehampton in Devon has sparked local calls for more of the same with reopenings to Tavistock, Bude, Bideford and Ilfracombe on the agenda.

Instead of new money, why not make a decision to switch £27 billion found for new roads which panders to more guzzling and waste, and pep up or tilt in favour, the Rail Reopenings Fund which is pitted at a mere £500 million for the whole of UK rail? Given studies start at upwards of £50k - beyond the realms of campaigners like ourselves - the throwing into long grass ideas and solution, when a mere sorting equality out in budgetary terms could lever in so much, seems an opportunity lost. 

Please give us more support. In the north we want lines like Colne-Skipton, Woodhead, Matlock-Buxton/Chinley, Keswick and a new link to Louth in Lincolnshire, as well as York-Hull via Beverley. In the Midlands, Northampton-Market Harborough would link the emergent Oxford-Milton Keynes lines with East Midlands and vice versa. In the south, Guildford-Horsham-Shoreham for Reading-Brighton direct arcingly and a new Polegate-Stone Cross to shave 20 minutes off Brighton-Ashford and enable more London-Gatwick-Eastbourne capacity and freight by rail too. 

In short, we need a nationwide rail reopenings plan and a levelling up or switch of investment priorities from new roads to reopening local rail for more people and goods to be conveyed off the roads. It is not a panacea, but has so far proven good value for money and the environment, so why not consider and support it more? A stitch in time could save more than 9, in principle. It is time for action! Thank you.

The ERTA Newsletter is out now, to get a free email copy, send requests to richard.erta@gmail.com

https://ertarail.co.uk/become-a-member/

During these testing times, ERTA is working to ensure we keep our programme on track both internally and externally. I attach notice of a new date for our Market Harborough Public Meeting and welcome people to diary it and encourage others to attend and work with us in policy and goalification terms to move the agenda towards delivery of these rail links and attendant stations.

Our other events are on our website: https://ertarail.co.uk/events/

This is amended as we go.

May I invite you to consider a donation to ERTA which is voluntary and printing flyers to get our message across costs money. Any donation greater or lesser which can help tide us over, would be very much appreciated by us. See: https://ertarail.co.uk/ and scroll down.

Our association works hard to bring people together, get our ideas, solutions and suggestions into common currency and make for support for getting the idea of equal funding between road and rail and indeed, given COP27, to tip in favour of local rail reopenings. Currently we have £27 billion for new roads and a mere £500 million for the Rail Reopenings Fund, which is shockingly inadequate for the nationwide vision of local, conventional rail reopenings, rebuilds and select pieces of new-builds. Please give us your support and impress on your local MP's the need to inform policies and spending which actually helps with modal shift from road to rail, not a status quo which just makes congestion and emissions worse and doesn't reduce them. Only rail can, so we need the rails to ensure that can happen. Thank you.