As we feared, the planning committee was pretty much told that there were no grounds to refuse permission for the 236-space car park by Nar Ouse Way with its 55-space bike shed. Some noble councillors resisted this strange advice and voted against or abstained, but enough voted for to permit construction of the car park.

Strange advice? Well, here is the UK Department for Transport's standard layouts grid in the design manual (known as LTN 1/20) for a junction used as a key cycling and walking route:

And this is what the current design of the car park has:

Can you spot the zebra crossings where car park users have to give way to people walking and cycling between the hub (aka bike shed, on the right, marked with a 2) and the walking and cycling route (on the left, marked 8)? Any give-way markings? Even any dropped kerbs? No, you can't because there are none shown! Councillors were repeatedly told things like this layout has been reviewed and approved as safe, despite NCC Highways last correspondence on the subject on 9 February (Ref:9/2/25/1783) clearly stating:

"However, concerns remain regarding the proposed crossroad junction on the site access road serving the Travel Hub to the south and the parcel to the north. A crossroad layout introduces avoidable safety risks, and the generous junction radii currently shown may encourage higher vehicle entry speeds.

That said, the Highway Authority acknowledges that both the site and the access road will remain privately managed and are not intended for adoption.

Whilst a mini-roundabout or an alternative junction form would be preferable to the crossroad arrangement currently proposed, it is unlikely that a formal objection could be sustained."

I (MJ) feel that this alone should have been reason for refusal under the National Planning Policy Framework Chapter 9 and the borough Local Plan policy LP13 on Transport that requires "integrated and safe routes for pedestrians and cyclists". NCC Highways won't (possibly can't) enforce the borough's transport planning policies. The borough council should do that and keep its residents safe.

At least if anyone is injured on that unsafe layout, I expect the insurance companies and solicitors acting for the victims will accuse the borough council of permitting and building something despite being told it had avoidable safety issues. The current council are sowing a whirlwind for a future council to reap. (Of course, I'd prefer it if they built it better now and avoided anyone getting injured unnecessarily.)

More on this later, but if you really want to see how your councillors work for you and questioned this in detail, and which ones stood up for people walking and cycling, you can watch the full 90 minute discussion near the start of this youtube video (after they've taken a roll call, declared interests and so on):

As ever, thank you to the borough council for making it so easy to access recordings of their meetings and thank you to the councillors that listened to our concerns. But no thanks as a whole for approving another massive car park with "avoidable safety risks", making the active travel budget pay for it and failing to require developers to follow the National Planning Policy Framework, Active Travel England Standing Advice or the Local Plan.

More on this to come in future articles...