Issue - meetings

RESOLVED: That

1)  Officers are instructed to take forward the park and ride study and the Maidstone Town Centre Parking Strategy concurrently with the agreed bus interchange study, taking into account the following areas requested by the Committee:

·  Consideration of the expansion as well as consolidation of car parks

·  An expansion of electric vehicle charging points

·  The introduction of charging for polluting vehicles

·  Bus and rail interchanges

·  The impact of the closure of the Sittingbourne Road Park and Ride Site

·  Removal of any reference of considering car parks as development sites

·  The review needs to acknowledge that not all car parks are under the Council’s control

·  An up to date survey of car park usage

2)  An all member workshop be held to review the evidence gathered and the initial findings of the strategies before a final report is taken to this Committee

The Planning Policy Manager explained that the Committee had previously requested a report proposing a study which included park and ride, a new bus interchange and a town centre parking strategy. This approach would allow consideration of multi-modal journey planning at a borough wide level and an integrated approach to parking provision for the future. The report on the agenda provided further information on this study, including:

·  That the first step of this process was a short term operational review of Park and Ride, as the contract comes to an end in May 2018

·  A strategic review of Park and Ride provision would take place at the same time, with information from the operational report informing the strategic report

·  The development of a Maidstone Town Centre Parking Strategy which would align with the Integrated Transport Strategy and would consider how to encourage long stay parking in the larger edge-of-centre car parks and whether there was any scope for rationalisation of car parking provision

·  The council already had a lot of the information required to carry out these studies and draft the strategy, but there may be other information required for which additional survey work may be needed

The Committee considered the report and requested that the following elements be included in the study:

·  Expansion of car parks should also be considered, where appropriate, rather than a focus on rationalisation

·  An expansion of electric vehicle charging points

·  Consideration of the introduction of charging for polluting vehicles

·  The report needed to consider borough wide bus and rail interchanges

·  Information on the impact of the closure of the Sittingbourne Road Park and Ride Service needed to be part of the review

·  Removal of any reference of considering car parks as development sites

·  The review needed to acknowledge that the Council didn’t control  all of the car parks in the town centre, and this meant that the council’s policies could be undermined by others

·  The Committee requested a current survey of car park usage to form an evidence base for the report

RESOLVED: That

1)  Officers are instructed to take forward the park and ride study and the Maidstone Town Centre Parking Strategy concurrently with the agreed bus interchange study, taking into account the following areas requested by the Committee:

·  Consideration of the expansion as well as consolidation of car parks

·  An expansion of electric vehicle charging points

·  The introduction of charging for polluting vehicles

·  Bus and rail interchanges

·  The impact of the closure of the Sittingbourne Road Park and Ride Site

·  Removal of any reference of considering car parks as development sites

·  The review needs to acknowledge that not all car parks are under the Council’s control

·  An up to date survey of car park usage

2)  An all member workshop be held to review the evidence gathered and the initial findings of the strategies before a final report is taken to this Committee

Voting:  For - 9  Against - 0  Abstentions – 0