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Further on the cost front, you could argue that if the town needs these car parks so much, the private sector should provide them, including the full cost of land acquisition. The cost will be prohibitive of course, because as the poster below says, its always more cost-effective to build something else. Which is why these multistoreys are always owned by the LA. Good luck! Cheers, Matthew. ________________________________ From: Cycling and Society Research Group discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ralph Bagge Sent: 26 February 2014 15:31 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: advice on fighting damaging car-parking facilities As it's a local authority, the first tack would be running a campaign to demonstrate how the cost could be spent on higher priorities. Public speaking at council meetings, lobbying local members, all has an impact. The local authority will have to put an application before its planning committee. Objections must relate to material planning considerations - if the car parks are contrary to any policy then that is a material consideration. The local authority will/should have a planning core strategy document and a local travel plan - those are good places to start looking for grounds for objection as well as public health JSNA. Depending on the location, an environmental impact assessment may be appropriate. An organised opposition with posters/banners/petition and letters of objection all count. As does writing to local councillors. Some objector groups have commissioned transport consultants who have dissected the local authority's justification which sows doubt in the committee members minds (and isn't always costly). Make good use of public speaking at the planning meeting - be calm, factual and rational - members switch off if they are hectored by the public. Ralph Bagge On 26 Feb 2014, at 13:17, Kevin Ablitt <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: On a purely practical note you need to motivate as many people as possible to your point of view. Try local Sustrans and any cycle campaign group and of course local people. All must write in ( is there a consultation?), voters opinions count a great deal. Best wishes Kevin On 26 Feb 2014 10:19, "Dave Holladay" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: Largely by observation I note that Glasgow with less that 35% of households owning a car is, for most of the day a city with a wasteland of deserted streets, but during the morning and evening peaks it gets gridlocked by the traffic generated by the inordinately large amount of city centre parking, which takes so long to fill and empty. I recall one development in Brussels for the EC which the City Council rejected because it planted a focussed 2500 parking spaces at one central location, and with the general start & finish times roughly the same for all users, would have taken a few hours to empty and fill, fed by the limiting access of the local streets - so short of completely demolishing huge swathes of valuable commercial and residential property to create the access required for just a couple of intensive traffic events per day the use of private cars to deliver people into city centres is a costly and wasteful use of precious land. In Glasgow at 16.30 on a weekday the major M8 junction at Charing Cross is gridlocked - by 19.00 the streets can be completely deserted. We see a similar impact with out of town retail parks - especially when a major 'sales' season is in full swing. Providing parking creates congestion and drives away business. Plenty of studies show a traffic free town has higher retail revenue and commercial rents - plus higher occupancy rates, means higher business rates revenue..... Car parks are also land use with lowest rate of return.... far more profitable to use commercially, or even for residential development. Dave Holladay On 26/02/2014 02:33, David Patton wrote: The locus clasicus, from the American perspective, is Donald Shoup,"The high cost of free parking". I don't know that even he knows how to deal with a situation like yours, being ramrodded so heedlessly. Shoup is at UCLA, in Los Angeles. Best of luck ... Pitchforks? Torches? From my iPhone. On Feb 25, 2014, at 8:09 PM, Simon P J Batterbury <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: From: R Lee [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Tuesday, 25 February 2014 9:07 PM Subject: advice on fighting damaging car-parking facilities Dear All My local (almost totally Tory) LA is proposing to build three cheap and nasty multi-storey car parks in the small eighteenth century town in which I live. No alternatives have (ever) been discussed - e.g. methods of reducing the need to use cars. Improving public transport, and the walkability and cycleability of the town - and the car-parking proposals have only just entered the public domain with the intention have having them all agreed by April 1st. The leader of the Council - whose proposals these are - refers to them as a "Christmas present" for the town which not only reveals the facile level of understanding of the issues but the speed with which he intends to move. Does anyone have any experience of resisting such proposals or knowledge of a literature which could inform our own resistance? Many thanks As ever R Roger Lee AcSS professor emeritus School of Geography Queen Mary, University of London Mile End Road London E1 4NS UK http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/staff/leer.html telephone 0044 (0)20 7882 8200 fax 0044 (0)20 7882 7032 Chief External Examiner Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University Suzhou PRC ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service. For more information please visit http://www.symanteccloud.com ______________________________________________________________________