Local residents, those who work in the town and visitors now have an extra two weeks to have their say on nearly 50 proposals being put forward by Cheshire East Council to help resolve the parking problems in Wilmslow.
The Council has commissioned a review to gather evidence and understanding on the current parking situation in Wilmslow. The study has assessed the need for intervention, and has recommended 47 individual measures aimed to ensure that parking capacity supports the long-term viability of Wilmslow.
Despite strong feelings being expressed within the town the number of responses to date has been rather limited so in order to enable as many people to respond as possible, the Council have now extended the consultation on the Wilmslow Parking Review until March 31st.
A spokesperson for Cheshire East Council, said: "Cheshire East Council has taken the decision to extend a consultation on a range of proposals for improving parking in Wilmslow.
"We have had a good response so far, particularly at our community events, and feel that extending the consultation will enable more people to comment on the proposals. A total of 165 responses have been received as of today (14 March)."
The evidence used for the review included data on car park use and Penalty Charge Notices, analysis of correspondence to the Council, plus on-street parking surveys and questionnaires.
The main findings of the review are listed below:
- There is high demand for off-street parking. Utilisation of short-stay (under 2 hours) parking is 312% i.e. 3 or 4 tickets are sold per space, per day. Long-stay utilisation (4+ hours) is between 79% and 91%
- There is demand for parking – short and long stay - on local roads and residential streets
- A high number of parking violations occur at centrally-located 'hotspots' and close to off-street car parks in Wilmslow
A set of possible interventions has been identified. These are listed below:
- Convert some long-stay car parks/spaces into short-stay spaces
- Convert some short-stay spaces/car parks into long-stay parking
- Remove existing parking restrictions from residential areas, where they are unnecessary
- Introduce parking restrictions in residential areas, where they are needed
- Introduce parking restrictions on main roads to reduce parking obstructions
- Introducing charges for on-street parking spaces
- Develop Park and Stride facilities
- Develop Park and Ride facilities
- Introduce Residents Parking Permit schemes
- Increase / extend car park charges at existing car parks
- Build additional car-parking spaces at existing car parks
- Build additional car-parking spaces at a new car park
At this stage, measures have been indicated at 47 locations across Wilmslow, including decking on Broadway Meadow, providing additional spaces for long-stay at The Carrs, double yellow lines on Alderley Road from the Coach and Four to the King's Arms roundabout and introducing short stay parking bays on Buckingham Road, South Oak Lane, Altrincham Road and Lacey Green.
Other suggestions include double yellow lines on sections of Gravel Lane, Bedalls Lane, Knutsford Road, Manchester Road, Bourne Street, Nursery Lane, Stoney Lane,Nightingale Close, Leesway, Beech Lane, Lindfield Estate North, Alma Lane, Pownall Road, Chapel Lane, Hough Lane, New Street, Northward Road, Westward Road and a number of junctions across the town.
The introduction of residential parking permits are proposed for Old Road, River Street and Cliff Road.
A spokesperson for Cheshire East Council said "A mix of these options will be needed to address parking pressures in Wilmslow. Due to the high demand for parking, it may be preferable for measures to be phased so that no parking is removed overall. Also, measures may best be phased to avoid parking problems being displaced from one street to another."
Click here to view:
- Table providing short descriptions of each measure
- Map showing all locations across Wilmslow
- Wilmslow Parking Review report
Email your views to [email protected] by 31st March 2019.
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
CEC are continually repeating this charade and have not taken a blind bit of notice of the Council Tax payers expressed opinions since at least the Wilmslow Vision and Local Plan pantomimes.
Time for change.
So how long must we wait for Cheshire East to actually do something? They currently have proposed 47 different parking options, any or all of which could be implemented. This gives us 258,623,241,511,168,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
different outcomes for this proposal. Don't ask me how big this number is, but it's massively bigger than all the grains of sand in the world.
Therefore, is it any wonder people are bamboozled by the complexity of this proposal and have not responded?
Meanwhile, we are still waiting for yellow lines on Alderley Road. This whole fiasco sums up the Conservative run Cheshire East though. They promise everything but deliver nothing. So you know what to do on 2nd May. Vote Residents of Wilmslow and change local politics for good.
I park in Broadway Meadow every day, and live on one of the roads where double yellow lines are proposed the whole length of the road - seemingly to aid people using the road as a cut-through rather than improve parking but have seen nothing to indicate there was a consultation taking place.
The only way I found it was by googling 'Wilmslow parking charge' when the cost of parking for my daily commute more than doubled on Wednesday. There are/were no signs in the car park that reference any of the consultation.
Having reviewed the proposals however most seem to focus on introducing parking restrictions across the town and increasing the cost of parking in the local car parks - I struggle to see how this is addressing the issue of chronic lack of parking to support the residents, businesses and commuters using the town.
If there are obvious area's of concern for safety - at junctions for example where many double park - then why can the Council not deal with these directly and in good order, rather than trying to deal with every issue at the same time, but without a coherent strategy?
48 days to the local election.
Kick out the Conservative led CEC on 2nd of May and look forward to a future council that not only listens to its residents but acts on their concerns.
Many questions have been asked of Don on this and other social media sites across Cheshire East over the past few years... answer came there none.
Presumably, if he choses to stand for re-election(!), residents in Lacey Green will be getting a bit of paper through their letter box- after all, there is an election coming.
Incidentally; I see that CEC Councillors have been issued with free parking permits for all CEC car parks (only if they are "attending meetings" though ;-).
Link to original "photo-opportunity" (plus a very interesting discussion): https://bit.ly/2UFzehy
for the extortionate price of £ 3:50. Don't get ill.
By 'people using the road as a cut-though' do you mean 'people driving along the road to get from one place to another'?
That's what roads are for isn't it? To attempt to drive along Buckingham Road during the day one could be forgiven for believing this busy road has been given over to use as a linear car park, leaving just enough space down the middle for alternate one-way traffic flow.
Come on Cheshire East; stop prevaricating and get the yellow paint out!
How much did CEC pay this idiots?
The parking issues in town are pretty obvious, the lack of response suggests that people are simply fed up with this endless time wasting and money wasting of CEC.
I hav decided that it would be a very good idea to respond.
How long will it take the council to implement the double yellow lines needed on each of the junctions to stop this inconsiderate parking. I suggested some years ago that Bourne Street should have double yellow lines all the way down not just on the top half. Limited time parking on the other side. The Guild have their own car park but it seems it is not adequate for the number of people using it or they just don't want to use it, instead preferring to park on the road. I really don't know what the answer is as so many drivers nowadays think they can park wherever they like regardless of the parking restrictions.
I suppose all the money that could be spent employing expert planners and contractors to solve this problem has/is being used to fund the past and ongoing financial black holes that CEC seem to create month after month).
The local parking meeting we had in 2017 that was arranged by our local 'Muppet' - Don Stockton - was supposed to be a gathering of residents to discuss the parking issues in our streets. Instead it was a presentation of what the council was going to do regardless of what we suggested. Not anywhere near a democracy and certainly just like a 'dictatorship'.
I've said it before and here it is again - we can build as many fantastic car parks as we like but there has to be a strategy to get motorists to use them and stop parking anywhere they like without yellow lines for as long as they wish and for £zero. NO more parking with any wheel on a pavement. NO more parking on a grass verge. No more parking in a cycle lane and all of the lanes converted to a permanent status [single line instead of hatched].
a) making sure bike paths are usable - two of the cycle paths - to Styal, and to Summerfields, have steps - which makes them unusable. Other bike paths are not continuously marked, or are parked on, which puts people off using them.
b) improving bus services - they have been cut from half hourly to hourly, resulting in far more cars parking around Wilmslow. Does anyone know about the T2 service? I have lived here for 18 years and not been aware of it - it is not listed on bus stops that I have seen.
c) Encouraging Northern to provide cheaper tickets for 6th formers at Wilmslow High, many of whom are now driving in/being driven in, as the cheap ticket from Handforth for 6th formers has gone.
Then could businesses that provide car parking subsidise their employees who want to use public transport too?
The more we can provide alternatives to cars, rather than more car parking, the better for the people of Wilmslow and future generations too.
The big problem - and the cause of all the issues - is long term parking. This includes commuter parking for train users and those who work in Wilmslow but do not live within walking distance of their place of work.
There is only one answer. Build a park and ride and service it with a frequent and early and late running shuttle bus.
Of course this will need to be a paid for service and use should be forced by resident’s only parking on the streets that are currently being used for free.
As Mick Jagger said “You can’t always get what you want”. For the future of our community we need to take the difficult decisions now.