Councillors and committees

Agenda item

PROPOSALS FOR LEATHERHEAD HIGH STREET [EXECUTIVE FUNCTION - FOR DECISION]

Surrey Highways received a request from Mole Valley District Council to include the proposed changes to on street parking in Leatherhead High Street within the current parking review. This is in support of the Transform Leatherhead project.

 

To progress this proposal, which has been approved by Mole Valley District Council, the committee is asked to decide either to approve the formal advertisement of the County Council’s intention to make the changes to on-street parking restrictions or to defer the approval to the next parking review (likely March 2021). It is cost effective to carry out formal advertisement of changes to on-street parking within the advertising for the parking review.

Decision:

The Mole Valley Local Committee agreed to:

 

iii) Reject both options 1 & 2 put forward in the report.

 

Reason for decision

 

The above decision was made because the Local Committee felt neither option was a solution or was what the residents wanted. Neither option would achieve what Transform Leatherhead was trying to.

Minutes:

Declarations of Interest: Mr Cooksey declared a non-pecuniary interest that he chaired the Cabinet Meeting of Mole Valley District Council that had approved the recommendations to go forward to the Local Committee.  

 

Officers attending: Zena Curry, Area Highways Manager (AHM), SCC

 

Petitions, Public Questions, Statements: None

 

The AHM introduced the report; highlighting that the Local Committee were being asked to support Mole Valley District Council (MVDC) to advertise the Traffic Regulation Orders (TRO) as detailed in the report. The scheme had already been approved by MVDC’s Cabinet and they believed it was what was needed to support the Transform Leatherhead (TL) Project. She added that work was already underway to declutter and improve the signage around the town centre.

 

The MVDC Cabinet member for Projects put forward the below points to support the proposal.

 

·         The TL proposals had come about from the petition put forward to the Local Committee by the Leatherhead Residents’ Association (LRA) and what was practical to do.

·         To remove the parking on the high street would improve the safety, create better access for businesses, allow businesses to extend their table and chair licences and improve access for people with mobility issues.

·         There were plans also to introduce more markets and introduce parklets to make it overall more welcoming.

·         MVDC had focussed on better promoting free car parking times and increasing the number of free 30 minute bays.

·         She gave examples of other towns that had undergone similar transformations; Coventry, Loughborough and Shoreditch; noting that many other towns had also experienced the same decline in the high street as Leatherhead, and it was therefore essential to create a town centre experience to encourage people to come.

 

Key points from the discussion:

 

·         Members showed their concern over the risk of removing the car parking from the high street. They felt the parking was essential to keep the evening trade alive. They noted it was dangerous to try and revive the day time economy at the expense of the evening economy.

·         It was felt that more needed to be done by TL in terms of improved leisure outlets and activities before a drastic change like this could be implemented.

·         It was noted that the decision would be a difficult one for the committee to make as there were good arguments on both sides and there was no easy solution.

·         The point was made that Leatherhead High Street was not alone in being dead between 2.30-6pm. This was common of the time, with trends changing and people  favouring online shopping instead.

·         Support was shown for what TL was hoping to achieve but several members commented that they didn’t feel the time was right and in the past many other schemes to improve Leatherhead had not worked. There was belief this would be no different.

·         There was lots of new developments in Leatherhead. Many of which did not have adequate parking as it was. Removing another place to park would only lead to further parking issues in the town centre.

·         The Leader of MVDC, Mr Cooksey, stated that the proposals that had been put forward had come about to help the economy. MVDC looked at many different options and concluded this was the best thing to do. He added there were many views of people in Leatherhead and the only way to really know what everyone thought was to agree to advertise the TRO and let it go out to public consultation.

·         Mrs Clack stated that she felt the local committee’s view was that they were not ready to close the high street and spend money on a trial that could have a detrimental effect. She therefore proposed a new recommendation to reject both options 1 & 2 put forward in the report. This was seconded by Cllr David Hawksworth.

 

Resolution:

 

The local committee voted on the new recommendation. With 6 votes for and 6 votes against, the Chairman, Tim Hall used his casting vote to vote for the new recommendation.

 

The Mole Valley Local Committee agreed to:

 

iii)        Reject both options 1 & 2 put forward in the report.

 

Reason for decision:

 

The above decision was made because the Local Committee felt neither option was a solution or was what the residents wanted. Neither option would achieve what Transform Leatherhead was trying to.

Supporting documents: