One of the factors that increases pollution in the city centre is people driving around the city seeking somewhere to park. While we applaud the plans to build more out of town parking, particularly to the east of the city, we also recognise that people need to and want to drive the cars into the city. We therefore believe that it is important to have better planning for what to do with vehicles coming into the city that need to park. We would therefore like to see:
- More parking capacity in the city centre, perhaps by adding another layer above or below Charlotte Street
- An end to giving planning consent to hotel developments which have no parking provision
- A proper strategy for managing coaches visiting the city
- A firm principle that parking spaces cannot be removed without a plan to provide additional capacity elsewhere
- That on street parking should be primarily for residents’ use but with clear allocation of bays that businesses can use for their customer loading and collecting
Our research shows that a key factor in reducing pollution from vehicles in the city centre is reducing the amount of stop start driving they do. This mean removing unnecessary obstructions, for instance reducing the number of traffic lights, and ensuring traffic lights are better coordinated to avoid the build up of queues.