Owner/ Occupier

Central Park Estate

Highways Services

Selectapost 6

Ring Road

Middleton

LeedsLS10 4AX

Contact: Nicholas Hunt

Tel: 0113 2477554

Minicom: 0113 2224410

Fax: 0113 2478428

Your reference:

Date: 27th April 2012

Dear Sir/ Madam

Proposed Traffic Management Measures – Central Park Estate.

Background

Concerns have been raised for some time now that on-street car parking within the Central Park estate is becoming more problematic and that this situation is exacerbated during the working day due to student parking. Representations have been made to the City Council by residents, Councillors and the several management companies of this estate, who have all requested some form of traffic management measures to resolve their concerns. It is claimed that parking associated with non-residents creates obstructions within the estate, which hinders the access and egress from driveways, obstructs the pavement and more importantly would result in emergency services not being able to access certain areas of the estate should an incident require their intervention. It is alleged that this situation is worse during the University academic term periods.

The council therefore carried out numerous vehicles registration plate surveys on different days and at different times throughout the estate during both the University academic term time and holiday periods. The aim of these surveys was to enable an assessment of the parking needs and patterns within the area to be undertaken. From the analysis the results should identify which are residential vehicles, which are non-residential vehicles and how the parking situation changes during University academic term time and holiday periods, and during the dayand night time periods.

How the surveys were conducted.

A series of parking surveys have been undertaken within the Central Park estate during the summer holiday period on each working day and at different times to give a good indication of parking requirements throughout the working day. The same surveys were repeated again during the University term time, to enable a clear comparison of parking demands in the area to be assessed and analysed. The difficulty in doing such surveys is being able to identify residents’ vehicles from non-residential vehicles. A simple and effective way to identify residents’ vehicles is to record their vehicles registration plates when students will not be in the area and at a time when you would expect most residents to be at home.

In this instance we therefore took two night time registration plates surveys (one in term time and one during the summer holidays). These have therefore been used as a baseline surveys against which all the other surveys have been assessed.

These results show that the greatest parking demand in the estate was on a night when residents are home, which is what the City Council previous onsite observations had shown. These figures also correspond to weekend surveys taken to gauge if the existing residential parking surveys (night-time surveys) were comparable.

Analysis of the survey results

One of the major complaints received by Leeds City Council from residents and their various representatives implies that indiscriminate parking associated with the University creates obstructions within the estate. It is implied that during the working day parking demands are such that the free flow of traffic cannot be guaranteed throughout the day, residents cannot access their streets or access their driveways, which has been observed by Leeds City Council representatives. It is also alleged that parking during the working day term times is greater than residential parking needs on an evening or weekend.

This however is not supported by the surveys which show that the day time parking does not exceed that of the night-time and weekend requirements of residents. Of the 4 week days surveyed during the academic term time, only one day shows a day time parking demand which matches the residential needs overnight. (95 vehicles parked of which 26 have been identified as residents).

It is worth noting that although there is clearly a change of parking demands from residents to non-residents, this situation does not only occur during the academic term period but is also shown to occur during the school holiday period, but to a lesser extent, which may or may not be attributed to students. The analysis shows that on average 23 non-residential vehicles a day enter the estate to park during the school holiday period.

The analysis also shows that several streets are experiencing large numbers of non-residential parking during the working day, which exceed the night-time and weekend residential surveys demands figures. These streets being Thornbury Avenue, Huntington Crescent and Montgomery Avenue. The remaining streets within the estate show evidence of some non-residential parking, but these figures are low in comparison. These results match the complaints received from residents.

The challenge

The challenge is to provide some form of parking provision within the estate which enables the free and unobstructed flow of vehicles 24hrs a day, whilst not reducing the residential parking needs of the estate.

The surveys show a significant numbers of residents continue to park throughout the day and that there are also a large proportion of residential vehicles which exit the estate on a morning on their way to work on a daily basis. The Traffic Management Section therefore has to take a pragmatic and difficult view in evaluating if when on a morning the majority of residents have left for estate for work, can external parking needs for the area be accommodated on the adopted highway, whilst minimizing any inconvenience to residents?

The Options

Yellow lines

In areas outside residents' parking zones there are no ways of controlling parking without causing some inconvenience for local residents as well because the only realistic way to control parking is by means of yellow line restrictions. A realistic deterrent to non residential parking is the provision of single yellow line restriction, and to ensure that residents are inconvenienced the least, ifthat restriction is introduced for only a small time period in the morning and afternoon (9 – 10am and 2 – 3pm). This form of restriction can work well to deter all day parking, whilst leaving the option for shorter periods of parking over most of the day. However if parking is prohibited by yellow lines it is prohibited for everyone including residents and their visitors. Experience has shown that this does not control parking by non-residents who only need to park for half a day.

The nature of students’ courses and time tables at the Beckett Park Campus, supported by onsite observations has shown that there is a significant turnover of student parking in this and the surrounding area, which implies that a lot of students do not need all day parking provision, but only attend occasional classes at this campus.

This form of restriction would not address residents concerns of obstruction to emergency service vehicles. The survey results show that the area is most densely parked in an evening when it is solely residential parking. Therefore to resolve this complaint would result in a more onerous restriction being implemented, probably double yellow line restrictions, but this would have a significant impact on resident parking.

Residents' parking

Many of the complaints received from residents from the Central Park estate have requested residential permit parking for the area, as a solution to all their concerns. However this will not resolve the primary complaints such as obstructive parking, pavement parking or driveway obstructions, as the highest numbers of vehicles parked occurred at late evening, when only the residents were in the estate. Therefore if permit parking was considered the solution in this instance, then other supportive measures would need to be introduced to ensure the free flow of traffic and to remove excessive parking a key locations within the estate. This in turn would have a negative effect of some residents, who may then object to the proposed form of prohibited parking. Discussions have also been made in respect of limiting the number of permits per property to say one or two.

The reasoning being that most residents within the estate have a least one parking space and therefore only need one other permit. This would help to manage the parking needs and problems, particularly in regards to vehicle displacement.

Pavement Banning Order

One of the major complaints received from residents of this estate is in respect of pavement parking and whilst I appreciate on an evening many residents choose to park in this manner, it can and does cause serious problems for pedestrians, particularly people in wheelchairs or with vision impairments and those with prams or pushchairs. It has therefore been requested to remove pavement parking to protect these vulnerable road users/ residents within the estate.

Findings

There is an increasing debate as to the 'purpose' of a highway apart from to move traffic. There is increasing pressure to make residential roads more friendly places and not so vehicle dominated. However in reality and our present car orientated society this is a problem for highway departments when there are conflicting demands to park within the limits of the adopted highway.

In the Central Park Estate there are two specific road safety concerns from a traffic management perspective which need addressing at the earliest opportunity. The first is the ability for an emergency service vehicle to reach to the far extremities of the estate unobstructed in an emergency situation and the second is the pavement parking which hinders pedestrians, particularly people in wheelchairs or with vision impairments and those with prams or pushchairs, who are often forced to walk around the offending vehicles on the road.

As I am sure you will appreciate safety is our highest priority and because we drive it from a safety perspective most residents recognise that safety is more important than their convenience.

Recommendations

Some residents feel that the introduction of a blanket permit parking scheme would resolve all the issues, it will not. Due to the heavy parking demands on the estate during an evening and weekend, where similar indiscriminate parking has been observed and photographed, Leeds City Council has to propose measures that will address the road safety concerns 24 hours a day.

After speaking with the Directors of the variousResident Management Companies it was agreed that a 2 phase approach should be adopted to address the parking issues which the estate experiences. The first would tackle the immediate road safety concerns as I have described above by the introduction of double yellow lines around the key junctions and accesses within the estate.

This initial phase will enable me to monitor the effects and locations of any displaced parking which will no doubt occur. The second phase will enable the full extents of the displacement to be assessed and monitored. This phasing will then enable both LCC, the residents and the Management Companies to consider if permit parking is still appropriate, needed and how should it be implemented. i.e. should permits be restricted?

Due to the costs and other implications of residents' parking schemes, we would only go ahead with such a proposal if representations are made from a high proportion of residents stating that they wanted the scheme on their road and we had good justification for its introduction. If it is felt this is the correct course of action and over whelming support is received from residents, now that provisional funding has been identified, we would start the legal processes.

It is important to stress at this point that holding a residents' permit does not guarantee that there will be a vacant parking space near to your house.

It is worth noting at this stage that several residents have already written to the City Council stating that they would not support the introduction of a permit parking scheme, due to the fact that each property would only receive one visitors permit and this would inconvenience them greatly. Although there is a process to inform the Council when residents have more than one car visitor, the complainants felt this was too onerous and were not in favour. Full details of the resident permit parking can be found at under ‘permit parking’.

I would be grateful if you would consider the proposals and if you have any comments to make please respond to my email address shown above.

Thanking you for your assistance in this matter

Yours sincerely

Nicholas Hunt

Principal Traffic Engineer

switchboard 0113 222 4444 Highways Helpline 0113 2224407