News roundup, week ending 19th July

Well, Councillor Barton has emerged from hibernation, no doubt wearing her red and white knitted scarf and bobble hat, with a new entry on her website about her activities since her last report.

Curiously, when you consider how seminal it is in terms of the development of her political career, arising from the “parking wars” last year and in January, it doesn’t mention the Local Committee meeting on July 5^th.  Could this be because she wasn’t there, for her first such meeting?

On the subject of parking, she notes the proposed review of the residents’ parking schemes to be discussed at the December meeting of the committee – presumably she will make an effort to attend that one!

She has also “volunteered” David Curl, a Surrey Highways Dept  official with responsibility for parking, to receive “feedback”, giving his email on her website - david.curl@surreycc.gov.uk

Now, the review is not supposed to be a repetition of the public consultation exercises carried out last year.  Rather it is a technical review, looking at how in detail the schemes are working – traffic counts, and surveys of where, when, how many cars are parked in the individual roads to see if usable space is being left unnecessarily idle.  (For example, could limited daytime parking be permitted, if residents have left spaces to drive to work, so long as they can find space to park when they come home?). I don’t think Mr Curl is really interested in general expressions of objection or indeed support for the schemes, but comment on detailed implementation may be worth making.

For example, I’ll probably take a camera and a tape measure down to Bunch Lane and examine the northernmost block of parking bays, to see whether in fact there would be more road width and better sight lines if the spaces were to be shifted 20 metres or so further north.

 

Frack off!

 

 

Mrs Barton has also commented on the planning proposal submitted by Celtique Energie for “fracking” at Fernhurst, and has provided a useful link for further information.  From there, you can link to the South Downs national Park’s planning portal, where you can submit comments on the Celtique proposal.

And indeed I did just that, with the following result:

Dear Ms Harding

Thankyou for your reply.

 If that is the case, then why have you opened a process for submitting comments?

 Regards

 

From: Lucy Harding <Lucy.Harding@southdowns.gov.uk>
To:

Sent: Tuesday, 16 July 2013, 11:03
Subject: SDNP/13/02126/SCOPE

Dear

 Proposed Oil and Gas Exploration Site near Fernhurst

 Thank you for your email regarding the above. I am responding on behalf of Tim Slaney, Director of Planning.

 An application has not been submitted and I am therefore unable to take your comments into consideration at this stage because they will not relate to the final proposal. You can however send you comments and concerns to Celtique Energie by using the community consultation line 0800 023 2148 or consultation@celtiqueenergie.com.

 As part of the early stages of a statutory process called Environmental Impact Assessment, we are currently seeking the views of relevant statutory and non-statutory consultees, such as the Environment Agency, to make sure that the Environmental Statement that will be submitted with the application contains sufficient information for us to be able to fully consider the environmental impacts of the proposal.

 When an application is submitted, you will be notified via a number of ways including a site notice, details provided on our website and in the press.

 We have made Celtique Energie aware of the concern residents have expressed to date in relation to the proposal and for further information about oil and gas development please see the Frequently Asked Questions document which shall in due course be placed on our website: http://www.southdowns.gov.uk/

 Kind regards,

Lucy Harding MSc

Minerals and Waste Planning Officer

Freedom of Information Request

I asked Waverley Borough Council for some information about parking in the town centre car parks under their management.  I hadn’t actually framed it as a FOI request, although that is how they chose to respond – no matter, the point is what information I got back from them.

I had hoped they might be able to provide information specifically on the number of hours’ worth parking tickets sold for each of the three central car parks – High Street (Waitrose), Chestnut Avenue, and Tanner’s Lane.  Unfortunately, due to various issues notably vandalism to the ticket machines (did I see someone hopping away rapidly on crutches one night?  Probably my imagination) this was not possible, but I did get the next best thing, annual sterling revenues and tables of hourly rates from which to estimate the number of hours sold.

I asked for 2008/9, as the last full year before Waitrose opened to replace the former Somerfield store, and the most recent two years.

I have made some calculations from this data:  converting £ revenues into hours of parking purchased by using the tabled hourly rates, and then hours per bay using the tabled number of available paid bays (total less disabled parking, which are free).

 

The calculations necessarily contain some approximations: 

·         hourly rates increased in February 2012 so there isn’t a clean comparison between the rates charged for the whole of the years ended 31 March 2012 and 31 March 2013.  I have assumed rates changing at the year end – the earlier increase probably means that slightly fewer hours were sold in 2011/12 than I have estimated; 

·         the number of available spaces in High St reduced significantly but I don’t have the date for that so I have assumed at the fiscal year-end;

·         I have assumed that 40% of High St tickets are 2 hours so the average in 2012/13, of 70p for one hour and 75p/hr for two hours, is 72p.  (Anecdotally, I am told that the great majority of High St tickets are one hour, so the rate is closer to 70p and the hours sold correspondingly, probably, higher).

The results are:

High St		Revenue	£/hr	Hrs	Spaces	Hrs/space
2008/9		229000	0.60	382000	164	2329
2011/12		274000	0.60	457000	164	2787
2012/13		275000	0.72	382000	134	2851
Chestnut Ave
2008/9		90000	0.50	180000	132	1364
2011/12		105000	0.50	210000	132	1591
2012/13		109000	0.50	218000	127	1717
Tanners Lane
2008/9		25000	0.25	100000	50	2000
2011/12		31000	0.25	124000	50	2480
2012/13		39000	0.25	156000	46	3391

So, what conclusions can be drawn from this?

·         Total parking sales increased materially in all three car parks following the arrival of Waitrose.

·         Some of that gain was clawed back in the latest year, although apparently there was some transfer from  High St to the other two.  This may be attributed to the Lower St gasworks and the severe winter we had in 2012/13, compared with 2011/12, but also evidently the reduced number of available spaces (due to building works) had an impact, as the hours sold for each available space increased again

·         The reduction in High St sales appears to be more about the extraneous factors than the pricing – the increase from 60p to 70p does not appear to have deterred people from parking there if they can find a space

·         Although the price of the High St car park has increased again, to 80p for the first hour from April 2013, the increases have followed several years in which prices did not change at all, indeed prices for  Chestnut Avenue and Tanner’s Lane have not changed at all since before April 2008.

Not much in this week’s Haslemere Herald.  The front page has an article – “Tories break ranks over planning row” - about the Core Strategy, rejected by the inspector recently because it made insufficient provision for housebuilding.  The battleground seems to be around Dunsfold Aerodrome site, and it is curious (not) to note that one councillor firmly opposed to the notion of a large housing estate there, and therefore remaining with the main Tory fold,  is Richard Gates (Bramley – in other words, in the path of all the traffic emanating from Dunsfold in the direction of Godalming and Guildford).  Even uncuriouser are the identities of the dissidents:  Mary Forysewski (Cranleigh Rural) and Janet Somerville (Cranleigh East) who “crossed the floor” to side with the two UKIP councillors Diane James (Ewhurst) and Brett Vorley (Cranleigh East) in opposing.  Question one:  where are several hundred houses proposed on “Greenfield” sites close to the village centre?  Question two:  Cranleigh may be “The largest village in England” but doesn’t it seem a tad over-represented judging by this array of talent?

And finally, this letter from the Chairman of Dunsfold Parish Council

 

Yes, as I said last week:  Dunsfold does not have a consent for “unrestricted” aviation movements, merely no restrictions on movements related to aircraft maintenance and repair.  Dunsfold is not about to become the new Gatwick, and the number of movements will still be low.  This was merely an attempt to scare local people and the planners into accepting a large housing development on the basis of fearing something worse.