Agenda item - Public Involvement

To consider the following matters raised by members of the public:

(a)               Petitions: To receive any petitions presented by members of the public

(b)               Written Questions: To receive any questions submitted by the due date of 12 noon on the 22 April 2014.

(c)               Deputations: To receive any deputations submitted by the due date of 12 noon on the 22 April 2014.

(b)                   Written Questions

(i)                       Stanmer Estate Masterplan consultation: Jamie Hooper

102.1          Jamie Hooper asked the following question:

" The present Stanmer Estate Masterplan Consultation gives no information on planned removal (see Landuse and Mott MacDonald consultants reports, April 2012, March 2014) of planned removal of existing car parks close to Stanmer House, Church and village amounting to 150 standard (non-Blue Badge) places. Replacement would be a minimal 175 parking area near the Lower Lodges. There is no detailed plan to transport visitors from there, so most would need to walk a mile to those locations.

How can visitors make informed choices in the questionnaire about their future experience on visiting Stanmer Park if denied this information?"

102.2          The Chair provided the following response:

“Thank you for your question regarding Stanmer Park and for you continued interest in this project.

Transport and parking is one of the biggest challenges for Stanmer Park. Parking is currently uncontrolled, there is displacement of cars from the university, particularly during the week, events at the Amex stadium have also caused problems and the sheer number of visitors driving to the park is causing access problems for the bus at peak times.

Clearly parking needs to be addressed. To this end we have commissioned a vehicle access study to start to explore the options available. This study makes some initial recommendations which were shared with Stanmer Stakeholders at the meeting last week that you and I both attended. They will form the basis of a specific consultation on parking in the park which I hope will take place later this year after the submission of the Stage 1 HLF bid.

Parking proposals haven’t been included in the current consultation on Stanmer Park. This consultation is designed to inform the stage 1 application and is still high level. The detailed parking proposals haven’t been finalised and it wouldn’t be appropriate to have included them at this stage.

Officers will be working with you and the stakeholders in the run up to the parking consultation which will be completed to inform the final, detailed Stage 2 HLF application – assuming we are successful at Stage 1.

The document you refer to is a discussion of the parking problems currently faced and a possible way forward. There are no proposals at this stage on one solution”.

102.3          Jamie Hooper asked the following supplementary question:

“Councillor Randall in his reply to a Public Question this January stated that the Council's policy was that consultations were to be fair and informed. With that in mind, will Park's Projects agree not to have any changes in car parking arrangements including charges until they have further gone to consultation giving three options.

Namely, the status quo, secondly, Parks Projects' preferred options, and finally an option provided by Stanmer Stakeholders with the results of this consultation to be reported back to this committee”.

102.4          The Chair provided the following response:

“We are exploring interim measures to address the blockage of the bus route which has been restricted on a number of occasions and sometimes cannot continue its journey leaving passengers stranded. Proposals may consider lining to remedy the problem.

Proposals on the wider options for parking will be consulted on at the later, detailed Stage 2 HLF application process”.