No parking

While multi-storey car parks are safe, the council is to close most of the surface level car parks in the town centre and sell them for redevelopment.

This will mean commuters would be forced into using park and ride schemes since there will be fewer places for them to park in the town centre.

But Swindon Chamber of Commerce has warned that businesses will suffer if their employees are not allowed to park in the town centre.

It has not yet been decided exactly which car parks will be developed because the plans are part of a long-term strategy that will not be completed until 2011, by which time the town's population is estimated to have risen by around 20,000 to 200,000.

A study on the capacity of car parks carried out by the council in December last year showed there were 1,500 more parking spaces in the town centre than was necessary.

But plans for the new park and ride schemes are likely to upset residents after the council confirmed it is looking for suitable sites in Oxford Road and Highworth Road.

It is also planning to build a scheme near Junction 16 of the M4 if it is developed, and is pressing ahead with a site at the Great Western Hospital, close to the Commonhead Roundabout, near the Great Western Hospital, on land currently owned by Swindon and Marlborough NHS Trust.

Dennis Grant, chief executive of the Swindon Chamber of Commerce, said: "Parking is an issue and we cannot kid ourselves it always has been and is now becoming even more so.

"The town centre is not as attractive to shoppers as it should be and because of redundancies by major employers there are fewer people parking there.

"For many people in business a park and ride simply isn't suitable. If you are an assessor at Zurich in Station Road you will need to go out in your car three or four times a day and you cannot spend all day on the park and ride."

This was echoed by one of the largest employers in the town, Zurich Financial Services.

Its spokeswoman Debbie Isaac said: "We would be surprised and disappointed if this news getting rid of 800 parking spaces and replacing them with 2,000 park and ride spaces is true, since we have been working closely with the council on this issue for some time.

"As a large local employer, we would be very concerned about the obvious impact on our staff.

"We have advised the council, following consultation with our staff, that for many staff, park and ride is not a workable option. For example, 16 per cent of our staff drop off or collect children and partners on their way to or from work, and we know that these people already have difficulty finding available parking around our offices.

"We will, of course, be checking this news with the council and discussing further with them any further details and implications."

Around £440,000 of income is generated for the council from long-stay car parking tariffs each year more than the £340,000 cost of the borough's park and ride schemes at the Copse and Croft Road, Wroughton.

Coun Keith Small, (Lab, Western), lead member for transport and environmental services, said: "We will continue to bring on line park and ride sites to help reduce the commuter congestion at peak times.

"We realise that there will have to be some commuter traffic in the town which the business community will require.

"We will continue to talk and work with the town's major employers and the Chamber of Commerce to approach any problems in the town centre that may exist."

The council's parking strategy, as set out in the local transport plan, aims to maintain the economic vitality and viability of the town centre, provide parking facilities for those where the car is the only means of travel. But it is also charged with providing a pleasant environment for pedestrians and encouraging commuters to use sustainable forms of transport.

Conservative councillors attacked the idea at a recent meeting of the Transport Environment and Neighbourhood Services Commission because they say the Commonhead site would be designed with only one entrance to discourage people from Swindon, rather than others travelling into town, using it.

Coun Fionuala Foley (Con, Old Town and Lawns), chairwoman of the council's Transport, Environment and Neighbourhood Services Commission, said that Swindon should not be in such a rush to get people out of their cars, especially since Honda is one of our major employers.

She said: "While we do have to encourage employers to have a green policy I am not fond of the Labour government's drive to get us out of our cars.

"It is easy to lay down the law and set up these park and ride sites but not always easy to put into practice.

"The design of the Commonhead Park and Ride is unfair. I am adamant that Swindon taxpayers should not pay for something which is designed to be used by people coming to the town from Marlborough." Already hundreds of car parking spaces have been lost to the new Ramada Hotel development on the Holbrook Way-Bridge Street axis, but Swindon mayor Stan Pajak (Lib Dem, Eastcott) thinks flattening surface car parks around the town and forcing people to use sustainable transport is the way forward for the future.

He said: "Places like the Wyvern car park can be freed up for development - and it's a potential place for the town's new central library.

"Likewise other car parks around the town could be sold and developed because we should be encouraging people to use the park and rides, which are incredibly good forms of transport.

"The planned park and ride at Commonhead is brilliant because hopefully it will encourage all the people coming in Swindon from the motorway to park their cars and jump on to a bus. It's cheap, convenient and far easier to use than driving into the town everyday.

"But businesses have their reservations, which is why we need to find a solution that is good for everyone concerned.

"We need to look at ways of creating more cycle lanes, laying on more buses and making the town centre more of an attractive proposition for people to use."

Included in plans for the redevelopment of the Brunel Centre is the provision of 1,400 additional car parking spaces in the town centre although the development will mean the loss of the Granville Street surface car park.

But the council hopes its plans will turn out like Oxford's hugely successful park and ride scheme, which has been in operation for nearly 20 years.

It was once labelled an expensive white elephant, but it is now the first choice of transport for commuters wanting to get into the city due to the enforcement of strict traffic regulations.