Can you imagine what parking would look like in Portsmouth in 10 years’ time? Plans are about to be developed to help manage parking for businesses, visitors and residents to make travel better in our city.
Portsmouth has many terraced houses with no off-road parking and there are more cars registered to each household than there are on-road parking spaces available. On average over 1.3 cars are registered to each household but room for only 1 car and over 1.5 if commercial vehicles are included. At next weeks, Portsmouth City Council’s Cabinet meeting they will discuss plans to start developing a parking strategy for the city that residents, visitors and business owners will have an opportunity to have their say on once developed, later this year.
The strategy will create a ten-year plan for demand management of parking in Portsmouth, which helps to reduce congestion, deliver economic growth, creates space for important developments in the city. Alongside this, it’s vital that measures are introduced which support and encourage sustainable and alternative ways of travelling to reduce the reliance on using private cars for every journey as we have limited space to park vehicles. This includes offering residents access to car clubs and making buses easier to use by such things as extending operating times
The strategy will also consider the variety of parking needs of residents, businesses and visitors including the use of parking spaces for things such as rental bike parking, disabled parking bays and electric vehicle charging bays.
The expansion of the park and ride is a key element for both visitors and businesses in providing an alternative way of traveling into the city as well as long stay parking for cruises.
Over the next six months or so the council will be developing the strategy with Councillors and other key people in the city. Once developed there will be a full consultation including opportunities to discuss the strategy and a survey where everyone can share their views. There will be a variety of ways people will be able to have their say both on and offline.
Alongside the development of the strategy, over £110 Million is being invested in buses and improvements that make it a more attractive way of travelling, walking and cycle routes are becoming better connected and there are many more improvements right across the city to create better travel for everyone to support the delivery of the Transport strategy that aims to create a cleaner, greener and better-connected city for everyone.
Cllr Lynne Stagg, Cabinet Member for Traffic and Transportation, said: “Whether outside our homes, at the shops, or local tourist sights, few subjects evoke as much passion as parking. Especially in Portsmouth where we have over 30,000 vehicles travelling out of the city and 41.000 coming in each day.
Having a parking strategy in place will mean we can continue to help our communities to thrive by ensuring we have the right level and types of car parking facilities, the correct controls for their use, including options for sustainable travel. I look forward to discussing the plans to give Portsmouth residents a say on this important topic in Autumn.”
The Cabinet meeting will take place on the 21 February 2023.