Traffic - Trust Annual Report 1996
The Trust has continued to monitor the progress of the joint County/City Council Movement and Access Panel (WMAP), and the associated meetings of the City Traffic and Engineering Committee.
The most positive aspect of this was the report in November 1995 that the Pilot Park and Ride Scheme which had opened in September 1994 at Bar End had been operating consistently at near-capacity. As a result, the WMAP had agreed that a planning application should be prepared for completing the Full Bar End Park and Ride Scheme, using part of the old land bound by Bull Drove, the Bar End bridge and the Hampshire County Highways depot. This includes a short length of the old bypass.
The outline plans were seen by representatives of the Trust in February 1996, and the Planning Applications themselves were received in mid-July 1996. The Trust supported these plans as being in the best interests of Winchester as a whole, with the proviso that all possible steps should be taken to contain traffic levels in Garnier Road; also that the progress of the landscaping should be closely monitored to ensure that it was performing its screening function correctly. By doing so, the Trust accepted that there would be a fleeting sight of parked cars and lamp-posts visible when crossing the Bar End Bridge on entering the City.
The Trust has for some time understood the WMAP view that more than a single carpark would be needed to accommodate the priority demand for traffic coming in from the northeast, through east to south-west of the City, and that a second carpark at Bushfield Camp should follow Bar End as soon as planning resources and finance become available.
In March 1996 a City Traffic Department paper was produced outlining the details of every major carpark in the City. As the major Park and Ride sites come on stream, consideration will have to be given to the closure of some City centre car parks. This will obviously be controversial, and the Trust will have to take a view.
The Trust agreed that it would not participate in any detailed discussions on residents' parking - this being considered the concern of local residents' groups. Representations received by the Trust were usually those of exasperation that residents could not park outside their own houses, and asking for residents' parking as soon as possible!
The Trust has participated during the year in discussions concerning cycleways in Winchester.
By identifying a resident in many streets who would be willing to assist the City Traffic Department with the placing of notices giving parking information, the Trust has been able to encourage significant reductions in the number of poles used to support the parking signs. The problem was first identified in St Swithun Street, where eight poles have now been reduced to one, and even the future of the remaining pole is precarious!