Kingston Council has approved the removal of on-street parking on Rowlls Road following premature action by a developer working on the Cambridge Road Estate (CRE). The decision, made at a Kingston and North Kingston Neighbourhood Committee meeting on Thursday, addressed residents' concerns about insufficient consultation and increased parking pressure resulting from the development. The council hopes that the regulation of parking on the new estate will protect residents from non-resident parking, increasing their chances of finding a space, and reduce traffic searching for parking, thereby improving air quality and road safety.
The developer, Countryside, admitted that the work was carried out before the necessary traffic management order (TMO) was in place, mistakenly believing that planning permission sufficed. Younes Hamade, Principal Engineer, clarified that the council typically secures a TMO before implementing any scheme, but in this instance, the scheme was implemented first.
The council received 18 responses to the consultation, with 11 objections. Key concerns included the premature removal of parking bays, lack of notification to residents, increased parking pressure, and road safety. Councillor Roger Hayes pointed out the ineffectiveness of relying solely on signs on lamp posts for communication and stressed the need for improved resident engagement. For future phases of the CRE development, such as phase two, Countryside plans to hold information sessions and send out newsletters to keep residents informed. Councillor Hayes also suggested using more direct methods of communication, such as door-knocking or using WhatsApp to connect with the Residents Association.
Malcolm Wood from Countryside acknowledged the error, stating that, in hindsight, they would have communicated the changes more clearly to residents.
CRE is a very complex planning application, probably one of the most complex applications I've ever worked on, and we did a really thorough job of consultation and, in fact, we won an award for our consultation, but what we didn't do is we didn't, at any point, whilst all those planning spaces were coming out on Rails Road, out of the highway, we didn't put, you know, we didn't flag those,
he said.
Councillor Patrick Hall voiced reservations, stating that the numbers in the report were not substantiated and that the decision was being made on a very small response from the area. He stated, This generates more questions than answers for me. So, yeah, my feeling is I don't know which way to come on this. I'm just really uncomfortable with it.
Despite these concerns, the committee voted to set aside the objections, with two abstentions, one of which was Councillor Hall's.
The committee also discussed mitigating measures. The Highways Department will explore the possibility of providing more on-street parking and will review zone N to address concerns from residents about people living in the CRE parking in their area. The review of Zone N will involve a consultation with all residents in the zone. There is no specific timeline provided for these actions. The Highways Department cited a parking beat survey from 2020, conducted during COVID-19 lockdowns, as evidence of reserve capacity, further confirmed by site visits. They stated that if the initial parking regulations for Phase 1a lead to displacement in Cambridge Gardens, a solution will be developed and consulted on for Cambridge Gardens.
The approved traffic management order (TMO mapking0103) includes removing around six shared-use parking bays and modifying and extending associated no-waiting restrictions.
