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Parking Plans Proposed
CHANGES to parking in Liverpool City Centre aimed a making it more friendly for businesses and visitors are proposed in a new consultation document.
The draft City Centre Parking Strategy will be considered by the Council's Executive Board on 8 July.
Among the main recommendations are:-
· Identifying more parking sites to increase short stay parking to meet a shortfall in provision because of current construction work
· Seeking to free up any under-utilised spaces for visitors, shoppers and business use
· Creating partnerships between the council and other private sector car park operators, who control 87% of off street car parks to improve delivery
· Requesting Merseytravel to develop park and ride sites especially at rail stations
The current parking strategy was adopted as part of the Local Transport Plan in 2000.Since then there has been a huge amount of regeneration work taking place in the city centre with consequent effects on parking and it has been decided to review the strategy.
Surveys show there are 27,000 on and off street spaces in the city centre, with 15,443 publicly available off street spaces. Off street car parks are generally operating between 80 and 100% capacity, with the exception of Kings Dock which is operating at 20%,
If the report is approved there will be a detailed consultation involving the Chamber of Commerce, residents, environment groups and other interested parties. The results of that consultation will be incorporated into the final strategy which will form part of the Local Transport Plan.
Cllr Peter Millea, Executive Member for Regeneration, said:- "We have been engaged in a long period of deliberation and now we are armed with the full facts on parking. We have taken stock of the situation of where are we are and what we need in the future, and are going out to the public to get their view. I would emphasise that no decisions will be made until there has been full consultation.
We want to attract people to the shops, leisure facilities and businesses in the city centre and any parking strategy must do that as well as complementing the
availability of good public transport."
Among the issues identified for consultation are:-
· Retaining the cap on the total number of off-street publicly available car parking spaces to 16,500.
· Expanding the capacity for shopping/ visitor/ business parking in off-street car parks
· Providing appropriate car parking facilities for disabled drivers at key locations throughout the city centre.
· Providing appropriate bicycle parking and powered two wheeler parking throughout the city centre.
· Monitoring provision and usage on a six monthly basis up to 2008,
with a full survey of all car parks in 2006 to assess the position.
· Developing a common approach to car parking across Merseyside.
· Developing all parking policies, strategies and action plans on a partnership basis.
A major issue identified for consideration is the increase in city centre living and the associated need for parking. This will be the subject of a separate study.
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