Examination of Witnesses (Questions 5960
- 5979)
5960. Give us an overview, as it was—15,
16, 17 minutes by fast train along to the tube compared to these.
(Mr Boyton) That is the choice for anybody
at Shenfield in terms of taking the journey into Central London
or beyond. You get on a fast train which at the very quickest
gets them into Stratford in 11 minutes and then they have a choice
of changing on to either a Crossrail train, the existing Central
Line or indeed some of the other services provided at Stratford.
They may choose to go on to the Crossrail line at Stratford if
they are going to a destination that is served by Crossrail, but
there are many other destinations clearly existing on the Underground
system that will not be accessed either directly by Crossrail
or can only be accessed by Crossrail by one other change on to
another Underground line.
The witness withdrew
5961. Mr Stoker: Sir, that is my first
witness in-chief and cross-examined. I will call my next witness,
Mr Brimley.
Mr Christopher George Brimley, Sworn
Examined by Mr Stoker
5962. Mr Stoker: Is your name Christopher
George Brimley?
(Mr Brimley) That is correct.
5963. You have a Master of Arts in engineering
from the University of Cambridge, you are a chartered engineer,
a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers since July 1977
and you hold the post of Head of Transportation and parking at
Brentwood Borough Council. You have worked there since 1986, is
that correct?
(Mr Brimley) That is correct.
5964. Can we go to the issue of the impact of
the postulated worksites? First of all, the impact is described
as serious and we will come to look at mitigation in a moment.
Do you agree with that analysis in the impact assessment, that
it is serious?
(Mr Brimley) Yes, I do, in terms of the impact
on parking, both long and short term.
5965. If we can first of all look at Friars
Avenue, could you give an overview of the Shenfield shopping centre
as you see it? If you could first of all encapsulate it in words
and then go on and look at parking issues and quickly go through
your photographs.
(Mr Brimley) As we have heard, the Shenfield
shopping parade is a vibrant district shopping centre. In fact
I have taken a few photographs recently which gives an impression
of what it looks like and the extent to which it is used by shoppers
and so on. It has day-to-day and some bulk convenience shopping
for the surrounding established residential areas, but it also
has some independent shops. There are no less than three independent
butchers, a fishmonger, baker and greengrocer, and it has speciality
outlets such as high quality fashion, fine art and interior design
function. It also functions as a local service centre with banks,
building societies, travel agents, hairdressers, doctors and dentists
and a library. There are also restaurants, takeaways and a wine
bar. At the moment I believe there are few, if any, unoccupied
units.
5966. We have heard that the car parks are 100
metres or less in terms of walking distance from the core shopping
area.
(Mr Brimley) Yes, that is the case. For short-term
parking the council is trying to provide that very close to the
shops where possible as the main facility for convenience shopping.
The traders themselves stress this convenience as being a strong
factor in the economic success of the centre.
5967. We will get specifically on to it at a
moment and look at the amount of spaces that will possibly be
taken away, but could you encapsulate the impact of taking these
spaces away over a period of up to 18 months? How do you judge
the consequences for the centre?
(Mr Brimley) The council is concerned at the
loss for no less than 12 months of these car parking spaces or
possibly even permanently. It is going to lose 50 spaces for this
period, which the Promoters themselves refer to as a significant
loss, and that, they say, is 44 per cent of the council's off-street
car parking which represents a figure of around 28 per cent of
Shenfield's short-term parking provision. The loss of those 50
spaces would in my view be likely to reduce significantly the
level of trade and cause significant problems to local businesses.
I think that many customers would go elsewhere to shop and would
not return again at the end of the 12-month period.
5968. Where would they go?
(Mr Brimley) They would probably go to other
areas—Billericay, Brentwood and Chelmsford have been suggested
as areas that many shoppers would prefer to go to if they had
to because they could not find somewhere to park conveniently,
and there would be a tendency for them to do that. Billericay,
particularly, is a larger town and is quite close by and has some
convenience shopping and would be one that many shoppers would
tend to go to.
5969. Within the context of the impact on car
parking provisions, how sensitive an issue is this in respect
of the activities of the borough council and local community?
(Mr Brimley) I can hardly overstate how sensitive
this issue is at the moment. Long-term and short-term spaces in
the Shenfield shopping area are both in high demand and over recent
years this has been proved time and time again. In fact I think
Mr Cork yesterday advised the Committee that the council had actually
changed hands on the basis of the issue of car parking in Shenfield,
and he is absolutely right; that is what happened fairly recently.
The borough council is currently conducting a review of these
issues. We have had stakeholder meetings taking place as part
of this to gain an understanding of the competing views of local
traders, employees and residents. We undertook an opinion survey
and the council's policy board on 15 March of this year covering
this showed that the public response had demonstrated the great
importance of short and long-term parking for local businesses
in Shenfield. Local traders at the time of the opinion survey
showed great concern over the issues and there is, in fact, a
high level of use of the existing limited waiting restrictions
in the area which I think illustrates that there is a great demand
for parking.
5970. Can you take up your photographs and take
us through them briefly to give us a flavour. As I understand
it, you walked around the centre taking photographs in sequence
to demonstrate your points.
(Mr Brimley) That is right. The first page
we have here shows the Hunter Avenue car park, and it is normally
full up.[29]
Hunter Avenue council car park is the most popular because it
is quite a bit more convenient than Friars Avenue car park for
pedestrians, so both short term and the season ticket holders
probably tend to migrate towards this car park. If we go on to
the next one that is a further shot of that car park.
5971. Page 2.
(Mr Brimley) We are now walking along the north
side from Hunter Avenue car park from the station on the left
in photograph A, walking towards the west and you will get an
impression here of the level of on-street parking taking place
and also see some of the service outlets and shops in the area.
5972. There were surveys done by the Promoters
that indicated in terms of the on-street provision such as this
that there was 100 per cent take-up, people actually queuing to
get into these spaces. Is that your experience?
(Mr Brimley) Yes, there is very regular, high
use of those spaces. I took this photo at about 2.30 p.m. last
Friday, but it is typical of most of the working day because the
spaces are very highly used.
5973. Page 3?
(Mr Brimley) We are still walking to the west
on the north side of Hutton Road. The road you can see in front
of you in D is Crossways and going across there is a butcher on
the right and a flower shop.
5974. The fourth page?
(Mr Brimley) Now we are getting to the area
where there is slightly more residential property, particularly
on the left, but we are still carrying on walking to the west.
You will notice that in photograph B you see some white advisory
access-clear markings, which were put in in the bays there to
keep access to the properties clear. But even so you will see
that people use up all the space available.
5975. Page 5.
(Mr Brimley) Now we are getting towards the
mini roundabout at the end which you can see in front of you in
B. Again, very high use of the on-street spaces.
5976. Shall we just move on and take as read
the sixth page (unless there are any other comments) the seventh
page and then we go to the eighth page.
(Mr Brimley) This is the Friars Avenue car
park, which, as I say, is less full generally than the Hunter
Avenue car park, though I would anticipate, with the recent growth
in occupancy in these car parks over recent years, by the time
Crossrail comes along I guess this will be full up as well.
5977. Then I am going to offer to take as read
9, 10 and 11, unless there are any particular points on that.
Can you just check?
(Mr Brimley) Yes, there is not really anything
on that.
5978. So then if we can focus in on Friars Avenue,
can you tell us about the strategy there and the split between
the short-term pay-and-display and season ticket holders, and
give an indication of how that strategy was formed and what it
is meant to be doing?
(Mr Brimley) Yes. The council introduced season
tickets into the Friars Avenue and Hunter Avenue car parks between
five and 10 years ago, I think, to accommodate strong demands
from local retailers that they did not have anywhere to park.
We limited the numbers of spaces. In fact, it was increased a
few years ago and is now at 85, maximum, spread between the two
car parks. In fact, we are considering a proposal to actually
allocate a certain number to each car park to make the two a bit
more evenly used because of the sorts of issues that the process
demonstrated. Eighty-two of those season tickets have been taken
up at the moment. The idea was to provide an off-street facility
for those who really need long-term spaces who were local employees,
mainly, and that really constitutes the total availability, apart
from this certain issue at the moment with some pay-and-display
machines on the street which can, actually, park long-term, but
that is actually going to be changed. However, at the moment,
85 is about the total number of long-term spaces there are available
in the Shenfield area to cover the whole of the shopping centre
and the associated offices, and so on, in the area. We do not
permit rail commuters to use them; you have to actually have an
address of an employer in Shenfield to qualify for one of the
season tickets, and the car parks are run—and it says so
in the off-street parking places order—as either season
ticket or short-term, two-hour limited waiting. What actually
happens is that season ticket holders tend to get there first,
so they are normally able to take up their spaces, and then the
short-term users later on during the day fill up as they need
to make use of any spaces that may be available.
5979. I wonder if we could put up our parking
policies, T8 and thereafter.[30]
This is the third appendices. While we get that on the screen,
you have got your policies in front of you. Can you explain to
the Committee how you judge that the provision of both pay-and-display
season tickets (that mix) is compatible with the policies in this
statutory plan?
(Mr Brimley) Firstly, the policies
T8, T9, T10 and T11 were developed in close co-operation between
myself and Mr Boyton, who was preparing the draft policies for
the Local Plan a few years ago, and there was much discussion
at the time of how they inter-related with the council's needs
and the views of the public with regard to Shenfield. You have
got to recognise, of course, that in the Local Plan, that is the
land use planning document, and Mr Boyton will, of course, be
very interested in having regard to government policies in terms
of planning guidance, PPG13. We have other, in terms of parking
authorities, guidance but that is one of the main issues there.
What we are trying to do here, in T8, is to promote the use of
short-term car parking but, also, to critically assess long-term
car parking. That is what we did and the council arrived at this
figure of 85 as being the level it wanted to provide, following
a great deal of consultation with local businesses and a balance
of long-term and short-term parking in the area, so as to promote
overall the best operation economically of the whole of the Shenfield
centre area. Then, in T9, we are talking about off-street public
car parking provision. Again, we believe it is entirely in keeping
with the strategy adopted in Shenfield. T10 goes on to talk about
on-street parking. Now that, of course, is a matter which also
is a concern to the council as local planning authority, but it
is of course fundamentally a highways authority matter. The council
has agency from the county council with regard to on-street parking
matters but no other transport matters. T11 talks about commuter
car parking and explains how we are very concerned about the loss
of commuter car parking in a number of areas including Shenfield.
29 Committee Ref: A66, Brentwood Borough Council,
Parking Issues-photographs (SCN20060329-007 to 012). Back
30
Committee Ref: A66, Brentwood Borough Council planning policies
regarding parking T8, T9, T10 and T11 (BRWDBO-14905-067 and 068). Back
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