Car Parking in Tarvin High Street

Tarvin Parish Council Survey Report on Car Parking

The problem of car parking and congestion in the village centre has occupied a great deal of Parish Council time over the years.

The problem was highlighted in the Parish Plan and is of importance to the village centre businesses that depend on customers being able to access them easily. A significant number of residents who live on the High Street, Lower High Street and Church Street struggle to find space for their own vehicles.
With more development coming to the village this problem can only get worse and the Parish Council was advised by the Highways Department that any request for improvements would be better made with hard evidence to back it up. Therefore the Parish Council has recently conducted a vehicle count over 4 days to assess the reality of the problem and the report was presented to the Council at the June Meeting.

Cars were counted 5 times a day on a Monday, Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. The roads covered were from Hockenhull Lane to 'Hair by Annette' and along Church Street as far as Greenacre Garage.

Saturday was the busiest day with an average of 62 cars per count and Tuesday the quietest with 40. The number of cars parked all day varied between 15% and 26% and the number parked for more than 3 consecutive counts (minimum 4 hours) was between 40% and 48%. Thus the survey showed that well over half the cars were effectively 'long stay'.
This number rose to nearly 75% on Saturdays. Without being able to ask specific questions of car owners the conclusion has been reached that, with the exception of village centre home owners, the long stay parkers are either those who work in the village, or those who park and take the bus into Chester.
There is also some use of the car parks of the George and Dragon, Red Lion and the Co-op by users of the village shops. It was agreed that no formal approaches would be made at the present time to the land owners to try and formalise this usage.
The Parish Council also looked at every possible place for a permanent off-street car park, looking at both the advantages and disadvantages of each site though this was not a costed exercise. The sites looked at were: King George V Playing Field; Triangle of land at Park Close; Top Farm; Grogans Yard behind the High Street; Pool Bank Industrial Estate; Garden Field.

The conclusion reached was that the only realistic place for the car park was Garden Field, just south of the church. The site is level and close enough to the village centre to be attractive to users, especially long term users. The site is owned by the Diocese of Chester and is sufficiently large enough to provide not only a 45 space car park but also some limited, low rise, housing development, that could off-set the cost of acquiring the land.
It was agreed that the report be sent to Cheshire West and Chester Spatial Planning Department and that a meeting be requested with officers to discuss the issues.
The support of Borough Councillors Hugo Deynem andJohn Leather was asked for and they agreed to support the request.

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