How much parking should there be at Melksham Campus?
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2012-10-21 10:39:01 - Graham EllisThese are personal views ... and should not be taken as representing the view of any organisation of which I'm a member!
Principles:
1. Anyone who wishes to drive to attend an activity at the Campus should be able to do so, and should be able to park within a distance that's reasonable for them to walk to that activity, in a parking environment that's practical for them to use.
2. Anyone driving to attend an activity at the Campus should be prepared to pay a realistic price for parking, baring in mind the ongoing cost of operating and maintaining the space, with an additional element towards the capital cost of setting up the space.
3. Anyone driving to attend both an activity at the Campus AND another nearby activity (that's defined as a reasonable distance for them to walk) should be able to park just once and not have to move their vehicle.
4. All practical steps should be taken in the design and build of the Campus to provide sufficient resources to meet the above requirements, without overprovision or provision to a higher specification to the detriment of budget spend on other elements, or to the detriment of other existing facilities being demolished with a resultant reduction in provision for the community.
5. Maximum assistance should be given to transport methods which reduce the number of vehicles accessing the site and the town centre, while not discouraging the use of the town, campus or other facilities in any way.
6. The scheme(s) applied should ensure that there is minimal parking in residential streets for the Campus or other town facilities.
Application:
a) I was very impressed so see how parking spaces are shared in the part of Cheltenham I was working in last week; a modern shopping "Strip Mall" at Swindon Village is alongside a number of businesses (officeish). On Saturday and Sunday, the shopping mall parking is heavily used by shoppers, and the business premises quiet. The business car parks provide an overflow for the Mall. On Mondays to Fridays, the shops in the Mall are quieter, and staff at the businesses are encouraged to park in the Mall (in the spaces which are further from the shops, and nearer to the businesses), leaving the business spaces available for their guests / visitors / staff who stop by for just a few minutes. A similar relationship should be created between the Campus area and the town area, with 'crossover' parking between King's Street and Central Car Parks, and parking at the Campus.
b) Parking for occassion use does not necessarily need to be formally ashphalted or otherwise paved, and indeed providing expensive spaces for very rare use is not a cost effective use of limited budget. There are large grass areas at The Campus, away from the formal front garden and area around the pond / lake, and away from the cricket square too, where an occasional car parking facility could be provided. Egress from such an area could potentially be onto a sliproad on the southbound A350, reducing the peak flow through the main entrance / exit at the Market Place
c) Residents of the Melksham area should be encouraged to make use of buses to access the facilities if that's appropriate for them, and with work done with the bus operators to ensure that the maximum practical use is made of these services. This applies to commercial buses, subsidised buses, and volunteer operated / community buses
d) Car sharing / pooling schemes should be encouraged. As many of the activities will be group activities, there is scope for co-ordinating lifts and rides through the clubs, and perhaps some sort of incentive could be offered such as designated car pool parking spaces nearer to the entrance. I counted [not in Melksham] 27 cars in a queue the other week, with a total of just 32 people in them. If each car had 4 seats, that's 108 seats, and under 30% of them occupied. Raise that occupany just a little - to 40% - and you only need 20 cars. That's no queue at all any longer as the road's no longer running over capacity, and seven car parking spaces saved.