‘Witney needs more long-stay parking’ (From Witney Gazette)

‘Witney needs more long-stay parking’

2:50pm Tuesday 15th December 2009

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A THOUSAND people have backed a petition calling for more long-stay parking in Witney.

A total of 15 shops have collected signatures from shoppers and employees over the past two months.

They want West Oxfordshire District Council to make more long-stay car parking available in the town as, they say, the three-hour limit on the majority of spaces — which are free — does not allow people enough time to shop, eat and go to the cinema.

At the beginning of the month, the council announced that 150 — a quarter of the 590 spaces in the Marriotts Walk multi-storey — would be changed to a five-hour limit. These are on the two upper floors. The remaining spaces will continue to be for three hours.

The petition, which will be presented to the council at the end of the week, was started by Laura Steffens, 24.

Hairdresser Mrs Steffens, of Richards Hair Group, High Street, said: “I have to leave my clients every three hours to move my car from the car park. The general public have also said that they find it difficult as three hours isn’t acceptable.”

Kaz Hakimi collected 50 signatures at the Old Studio Coffee House, in High Street. He said: “It’s important for business that there are enough long-stay spaces as when people come here for three hours, they have not got the time to go to the town. Plenty of them get fined as the three-hour time limit is not enough.”

Larry Dowes, of Cafe Bakehouse, High Street, said: “Parking is always an issue. Three hours is not long enough.”

David Harvey, WODC cabinet member for the environment, said: “We need to be mindful of the fact that everybody wants to be able to park as close as possible to where they work.

“It is in the interests of those businesses that their clients should be able to park as close to the business as possible.

“We do need to try to encourage people who work in Witney to take a five-minute walk, thereby leaving the car parking spaces free for the people coming in to shop.

“We do have to get the balance right between visitors to Witney, staff, and residents who live in the town, and all those who go to Abingdon and Witney College.”

Janette Reed, chairman of the Witney Independent Traders’ Association, said: “We don’t want to lose any of the long-stay spaces that are there at the moment, like the provision at Woodford Way.”

There are concerns the shortage of long-stay car parking will worsen if the council goes ahead with plans to shut Woodford Way, which has 250 12-hour spaces.

The land has outline planning permission for 50 homes, which was granted in 2007, when Marriotts Walk was approved.

Woodford Way car park is only due to stay open until June next year.

Marriotts Walk, which opened at the end of October, has also created more than 300 new jobs, which has added to the pressure on facilities nearby, while the multi-storey car park has just 100 extra spaces for residents of the 143 new homes in Marriotts.

Witney Chamber of Commerce chairman, Lesley Semaine, said: “There has been a lot of concern about the length of parking.

“It’s central for most of the shoppers, but the people working in Witney are finding it very difficult to get any parking facilities.”

There are 2,000 car parking spaces in Witney town centre — almost 1,800 in council-run car parks and 200 on-street spaces.

Long-stay parking accounts for 23 per cent of spaces.

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