Norwich council last month abolished 700 car parking spaces on Rose Lane in the city centre. As an isolated incident it is hardly news, but this was the second time in less than a year that the council has demolished a large public car park, and not replaced it.
In fairness, this was not entirely the council’s fault. Following the discovery of corroded steel reinforcements in both St Andrews – the largest – and Rose Lane car parks the council closed them, erasing almost 2,000 spaces, or half the city centre’s provision, virtually overnight.
The repercussions of this move have yet to fully hit the property industry, but Norwich agents are already concerned that occupiers will start to look outside the city or, even worse, avoid it altogether.
Car parking is an issue in most cities. And Norwich, like others, has struggled to balance the preservation of its historic centre with access to the city.
Nineteen car parks serve the city centre, providing around 1,900 spaces, and four park-and-ride schemes accommodate 1,700. But this is cold comfort for the 110,000 who cross Norwich’s outer ring road daily.
Both St Andrews and Rose Lane have been operating at less than full capacity for some time. As the car parks deteriorated, several floors in both were closed and St Andrews was eventually demolished in October, while Rose Lane was razed three weeks ago.
The problem, says April Pond, an elected councillor on Norwich council and an executive member for technical services, is that both car parks were constructed using defective designs and materials. Structural reports showed that the car parks needed to come down or they would fall down.
Pond says the council has been doing all it can to try and stop the problem becoming a major issue. It set up surface pay-and-display car parks at the St Andrew’s site in addition to several temporary car parks, and waited until a quiet time to close the two parks.
“We pulled out all the stops for Christmas,” explains Pond, “and with the park-and-ride and extra sites there was probably not a huge difference.”
Pond is not unsympathetic to the plight of drivers. “I have three shops and, yes, it does hurt. No-one at city hall is unaware of how difficult it is.”
Time is the key here, believes David Boshier, senior surveyor at Brown & Co. “It has taken the pressure off the city centre and we are going through a period of adjustment,” he explains.
Sam Kingston at Chesterton is less sympathetic. He says wryly: “The council has been doing what it can to encourage people to use the park-and-ride by reducing the number of car parking spaces. But it has affected the city-centre office market.”
Parking is not a must, admits Kingston, “but if you can go out of town into business parks where it is cheaper and there is car parking then people will start to move out.”
William Jones, a Bidwells’ partner on the business space team, agrees. “Parking in central Norwich is a massive problem for businesses,” he says, “The majority of people have to park in public car parks, and if you do not get in fairly early then it’s impossible. It’s reached a critical stage.”
The car park issue has only reared its head in the past six months, says Jones, hence the effect on the city-centre market has not yet hit home.
“We have not seen a massive exodus to the business parks but it will definitely result in more companies looking to see if they really do need to be in town,” he adds.
This will coincide with the fact that there are fewer and fewer opportunities to acquire offices in the city centre as developers, attracted by the larger returns, have focused their attention on the residential market.
Most agree that the council’s four park-and-ride schemes are reasonably efficient for a nine-to-five schedule, but are virtually useless for those needing access to their cars during the day or for anyone wanting to work late.
Park-and-ride is not practical for shoppers either. “The park-and-ride seriously addresses the commuter issue,” says Pond, “but it is no good for working mothers or those with heavy shopping bags.”
Caroline Goddard, Chesterton’s senior surveyor, believes the effects of this will start to show very soon.
“It’s not inviting to come and find that the city is congested, and I think people will start to look at the alternatives,” she says. “When both businesses and shoppers start looking outside that’s a problem because you lose the vibrancy in the city centre.”
Parking provision is especially important in Norwich, as its catchment area is very rural. There are few bus routes in from the regions and those that do exist are infrequent.
“It must have an impact. East Anglia is a very rural county and the only way people can get into the city is by car,” says Goddard.
Kingston backs this up. “Parking is a problem in any city but we do not have public transport. Where I live there are probably two buses an hour.”
Most discussions in Norwich centre on whether and when car parks will be rebuilt and where they will be located.
A planning application has been lodged to rebuild St Andrews car park in time for this year’s Christmas rush, but the future of Rose Lane is uncertain.
In the short term, the car park will be turned into a surface-only pay and display, reducing spaces from 700 to 200. The long-term future of the park is, however, still in doubt.
“It was a snap decision to close Rose Lane, as it would have cost nearly as much to rebuild it as to shore it up for another 10 years,” says Pond. Ideally, she would like the car park rebuilt on a new site, as its present position is “risky for women”.
This could be easier said than done with the council staring into a £650,000 hole in its parking budget.
“St Andrews and Rose Lane need redeveloping and that’s difficult when council budgets are under strain,” explains James Allen of Roche surveyors.
“The council’s solution was to come up with road meters.” These were meant to bring in profits of £700,000 in the first year, he says, “but it has only got £50,000 – which leaves a bit of a hole.”
As a result, agents in Norwich remain sceptical about the council’s promises, believing it will use the collapse of the car parks as an excuse to close permanently the facilities in line with what some believe is an anti-car policy. “This is the council’s way of trying to reduce the number of cars,” claims Bidwells’ Jones.
Pond vehemently denies this. “If you use across-the-board statements such as ‘anti-car’ then you run into all sorts of anomalies,” she says. “We do want to protect historic buildings but we realise that by banning cars you do not get a vibrant place to shop and work, and it’s not that difficult to combine the two.”
Pond puts this partly down to a recent change in local council politics. After 30 years of Labour party rule the Liberal Democrats won control of the city council. At the same time, the Conservatives succeeded Labour on the Norfolk county council.
“Labour was always very anti-car,” says Pond. “It is changing now, but people have to be able to get to work and the shops, especially in a county like Norfolk.”
But Thomas Carr at Percy Howes Commercial believes these changes have been too slow.
“In spite of this ‘revolution’, anticipated changes in areas of shared responsibility such as roads and traffic in the city have been slow to emerge,” he says, adding “they still believe that by reducing road capacity they can reduce congestion.”
If this is true, let’s hope the council’s predictions are correct, and that no more car parks collapse.
