Wednesday 12 February 2020
The Committee for Education, Sport & Culture has provided further details about why staff parking has been capped at 75% in plans submitted for the two new college sites.
Committee Vice President Richard Graham said:
'Providing parking for 75% of staff was the figure agreed, during our officers' informal pre-application meetings with the professional Planners and colleagues from Traffic and Highway Services, as the maximum reasonable amount for developments of the nature we are progressing. In a previous public comment, I referred to the total we're applying for as the maximum possible under the planning policies agreed by the States, whereas for absolute clarity I could have framed it as the 75% was the maximum agreed through those officer-level discussions if our planning application was to satisfy the policies upon which it would be decided.
'We could, of course, have chosen to put a higher amount in the planning application, but that would have been of questionable sense if the Planners had already advised it would go above what they considered reasonable for developments of this nature per the IDP and Supplementary Planning Guidance: Parking Standards and Traffic Impact Assessment. Such a decision would almost certainly have resulted in the application falling foul of States planning policies, as advised by Planning officers.'