I accompanied her to a meeting with County officers and the promoters of the Parkside Place development.

This was one of the actions from the Parking working group that filled a resident’s kitchen to bursting point-despite clashing with the Six Nations coverage!- back in early February.

On February 21st I joined Sarah as a resident rep for a productive and frank meeting with Alex Robinson of Grosvenor Estates, John Onslow, Director of Infrastructure at the County Council and his colleague Graham Lowe, Area Manager for Traffic.

We were encouraged to learn that Grosvenor and the management company Encore will be looking to provide for all the parking needs of the new residents of the Parkside development on site. It was confirmed to us that the parking spaces are not being sold separately of the flats, so spaces can only be bought if a flat is purchased.
We were also assured that Grosvenor have not promoted the existence of visitor permits to their prospective buyers.

In addition, Hundred Houses Society, the Housing Association managing the social housing on the development, have advertised their part without any parking.

Grosvenor will also be establishing a parking booking system with Encore, so that residents can use each others unused spaces for visitors. The Central Library parking team will also have access to this so they can tell people when they try to get a visitors permit if there are spaces currently free on the development.

We were also heartened to discover that the considerable cycle parking on the development is at street level and that Grosvenor and Accord want to promote the Cambridge culture of greener travel to the new residents, thus reducing the need for car ownership and helping to integrate the new residents into the Cambridge way of life. As part of that, the residents’ welcome pack will include details of public transport, cycling and the local Zip Car scheme.

It was agreed that it will be critical to continue to monitor the parking situation over the next few months as residents start to move in and we will be meeting again in the autumn to review how things are going.

I left feeling that there was a commitment from all parties to ensure that the development doesn’t add to the already difficult challenges of parking for residents and their visitors in the area. I’m also sure that the local councillors will continue to work hard to hold everyone involved to the commitment made on that bitterly cold day at the County offices!