Please support car park extension
ON behalf of Huntingdon Town Centre Partnership I write in support of the planning application to extend Riverside car park by 100 spaces. While Huntingdon has entered a significant period of exciting development, one of the biggest challenges facing the
ON behalf of Huntingdon Town Centre Partnership I write in support of the planning application to extend Riverside car park by 100 spaces.
While Huntingdon has entered a significant period of exciting development, one of the biggest challenges facing the town is the lack of adequate car parking provision for both shoppers and people working in the town centre.
I regularly receive letters of despair from shoppers, visitors and people working in the town centre. In a recent survey of all town centre businesses in February 2006 on priorities for the partnership to address, 90 per cent responded to say increased car parking provision was a priority.
I am encouraged that Huntingdonshire District Council has recently commissioned some research into how to deal with this increasing challenge and we look forward to receiving the outcome of this research in the autumn with, we hope, specific recommendations on how to resolve the problem. However, any recommendations are likely to take several years to implement. With the opening in the town centre of the new Combined Justice Centre, new Cambridgeshire County Council offices, the Saxongate centre and the new HDC headquarters, where there will be reduced car parking on site, the situation is likely to become chronic and increased provision is required now. The extension of the Riverside is one of the very few short-term solutions open to us, if not the only one.
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I fully appreciate and endorse the concern members of the public have in guarding our green space and parkland, and this is also a key priority for the partnership.
I urge people to look out for the public consultation, due in September, on the Huntingdon Town Centre Vision report recently undertaken by the Civic Trust.
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This is very encouraging and clearly links in with the master plan for this the Riverside area considered by cabinet in 2004, which seeks to enhance the parkland area with increased leisure facilities and improved access by foot, cycle and river. It identifies the Riverside area as one of great potential which is currently not being exploited.
EMMA THORNTON, Huntingdon Town Centre Manager
