Parking standards revamped after housebuilder protests

PARKING

Worcestershire County Council has revised its proposed parking standards for new housing developments after developers, consultants and even some of the council’s own officers said the original plans would deliver unattractive car-dominated estates. 

The council’s draft streetscape design guide recommended a minimum of two spaces per one and two bedroom house; three spaces per three bedroom house; four spaces per four bedroom house; and thereafter an additional 0.5 spaces for each additional bedroom. Garages were excluded from the calculations because they can be converted to storage or habitable accommodation. 

 Alison Osborn-Browne, technical director for landscape and urban design at One Creative Environments Ltd, said: “Your proposal for new parking standards is staggeringly poor, appears unsupported by technical evidence and is completely at odds with the fundamental streetscape design principles you are promoting.

“From a developer’s perspective this will render many sites, particularly brownfield, unviable since they will not get the returns they require if the densities are too low,” she said. “From an urban design perspective it will result in a major adverse visual effect. There will be a predominance of a sea of car parking, tarmac and drives, leaving little/no opportunity for a high quality, positive streetscape to be achieved.”

Consultant Phil Jones Associates, whose response was produced on behalf of Persimmon Homes, St Modwen and Bloor Homes, said: “The proposed car parking standards are considered to be onerous, contrary to the National Planning Policy Framework, unsupported by an evidence base and wholly unjustifiable.

“The proposed parking standards would render development layouts unviable and undeliverable ... [and] will ultimately create a streetscape which is unacceptable to the urban designers at the local planning authorities, where parking areas and garaging will be completely out of scale with the housing.” 

Tim Berrows of IDP Group said: “The standards proposed require that every bedroom, within every house has an allocated parking space. Can you imagine how many of the occupants of those bedrooms actually own cars? 

“Research suggests a figure of around 50%, so this leaves potentially 50% of parking spaces on your future developments being unused. Wouldn’t they be better as visitor spaces for everyone to use? Or land that could be used as open space/amenity?” 

Berrows also criticised the proposed dimensions of residential spaces at 3.2 metres by six metres. “Spaces this size are the equivalent of having a disabled space per car, which quite frankly is bordering on ridiculous.”

Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey said the average level of car ownership in Worcestershire was 1.4  vehicles per household, adding that only 20 per cent of Worcestershire’s five bedroom dwellings are home to five or more residents.

Barratt Homes said that the National Planning Policy Framework says local planning authorities should only impose  parking standards where there is a compelling justification to manage their local road network. It told Worcestershire that the council had provided no such evidence and the market should therefore decide how much parking is provided. The council’s proposed standards would “detract from overall design quality”, requiring features such as front gardens to be removed, it added.

The streetscape design guide, drawn up by the council’s transport strategy team, was also criticised by other parts of the council. The strategic planning and environment policy team said: “The approach to parking is apparently based on the assumption that every resident of a property – regardless of age – has a car.”

The development management team, which represents the county council in its role as a highway authority, said: “Officers consider that the proposed car parking levels could not stand up to challenge in the event of a planning appeal.” 

The final version of the guide sets minimum standards of:

• one bedroom: one space, and one cycle space

• two-three bedrooms: two spaces and two cycle spaces

• four-five bedrooms: three spaces (or four in rural parishes of Redditch) and two cycle spaces 

In addition, a garage will count as a parking space if it is equipped with an electric vehicle charging point. The final version of the guide retains the specification that a car parking space’s dimensions in residential developments should be 3.2 metres by six metres to allow for “circulation space around the vehicle”. In other types of development, spaces should be a minimum of 2.4 metres by 4.8 metres.