Drewitts Court Car Park…the facts!!

Signs on entrance from Hepworth Way

DREWITTS COURT CAR PARK

 

PROPOSALS FOR CLOSURE

OF EXIT TO

BRIDGE STREET

WITHDRAWN

A WIN FOR THE RESIDENTS

OF WALTON

 

About 3 weeks ago the Agenda Papers for the Elmbridge Borough Council Cabinet meeting on 30^th March were issued. On the Agenda was a series of recommendations about issues relating to the Council’s Off-Street Car Parks. The most important of these recommendations related to the reduction in all-day parking charges in the Council’s village car parks, and in all charges at the Halfway Car Park, for which we have been campaigning for some  two years. 

Packaged alongside were some recommendations about parking in central Walton. O&H, who manage The Heart Car Park have finally been prevailed upon to offer cheap(ish) i.e. £50 per month season tickets to local businesses and employees and the Cabinet were asked to recommend support for this sensible move. This then allowed the Cabinet to recommend the Drewitts Court Car Park to become a “short stay shoppers’” car park, which simply means that parking on the ground floor of the car park would be limited to 4 hours and the cost of parking all day on the upper deck would increase from £5 to £8. The Manor Road Walton Car Park remains at the existing rate. All quite reasonable and sensible now that Waitrose has opened right by the car park.  However, inconspicuously nestled in this set of proposals was a paragraph of eight and a half lines recommending that the exit from the Drewitts Court Car Park into Bridge Street should be closed for cars and vans. The reason put forward was that the car park is used as a short cut for cars just passing through, and “traffic passing through the car park is generally travelling at speed”. Closure of the exit to Bridge Street therefore would “improve pedestrian safety”. 

Melvyn Mills and I felt that this did not make sense, as we go through the car park ourselves and have not noticed any problems with speeding traffic generally, -two speed bumps and other traffic slowly manoeuvring looking for parking spaces ensures that – and we mentioned it to other people who live locally and there was widespread amazement that the Council would even consider suggesting such a proposal. 

When the Cabinet met on 30^th March, I asked David Archer as the Councillor sponsoring these proposals, a number of questions, notably :- 

• What evidence was there of traffic going at speed through the car park
• What evidence was there about the volume of traffic using the exit to Bridge Street
• What evidence was there about accidents involving pedestrians and / or vehicle to vehicle collisions
• What consultation had there been with local ward Councillors and other local residents and businesses
• What consultation had there been with Surrey County Council Highways given this closure would impact traffic on neighbouring roads and would in the view of many people create even worse safety hazards as traffic tried turning right from Hepworth way into Bridge Street by The Playhouse where there have been  several accidents
• What would the cost be?
• What would be the estimated cost to local residents in terms of extra fuel as result of having to make detours, especially for residents of flats such as Manor Place, Bridge Court, Strata Court and Drewitts Court

David Archer’s reply was only that “just because there has not been an accident in the past does not mean there might not be one when the car park becomes busier”. Clearly, no proper assessment of the implications of this closure had been done, nor any consultation.  Despite this, the Cabinet unanimously voted through the recommendation to close the exit to Bridge Street. 

All this was recorded in the Surrey Advertiser on 1^st April. 

Over the next few days, Melvyn and I talked to a lot more people and spent time observing traffic flows in the Drewitts Court Car Park. I probably spent over 4 hours there at different times of day. This reinforced our view that safety was not a problem and that it was hypocritical of the Council to propose closure of the exit to improve safety because of an alleged speeding problem, when their own signage in the car park did not ask motorists to go slowly, see attached photos. Furthermore, probably the greatest safety hazard is the risk of vehicles not stopping as they exit the car park into the lane that leads to Bridge Court and colliding with vehicles coming from the private car parks at Strata Court and Bridge Court, yet there are no “Give Way” or STOP markings there. 

So with support from a number of local residents, we launched a petition to oppose the closure of this exit. This was eagerly taken up by Mole Kenny, Graham Woolgar and many others. In less than two weeks Mole and friends had amassed 602 signatures to the petition, which was handed in on the morning of the Council Meeting ( 13^th April) which would be asked to approve or reject the Cabinet’s recommendation to close this exit. 

Melvyn and I prepared an amendment proposing that the recommendation in respect of closing the exit to Bridge Street be withdrawn, which was circulated just before the Council meeting started, and we had our arguments ready to justify our proposals. An hour or so later, the recommendations of the Cabinet meeting came up for debate and we were amazed that before the debate could start, the Tories’ leaders announced that they were proposing to withdraw their own recommendation, which of course was unanimously agreed. We also asked that should they review the proposal again in the future, both local businesses and local Ward Councillors should be consulted as part of the review, David Archer could hardly refuse! 

Cllr Chris Sadler

Perhaps a 'Give Way' sign here?

Can you read this?