ENCOURAGING SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT BY LINKING PUBLIC TRANSPORT ACCESSIBILITY, NEW PARKING STANDARDS AND DEVELOPER CONTRIBUTIONS

Like many other local authorities near London, Wycombe District Council (WDC) and Buckinghamshire County Council (BCC) needed to develop a methodology that satisfied the Government's new approach to parking in relation to development. This paper reviews the current parking issues, methods of measuring accessibility, the new parking standards, and the proposed method of calculating developer contributions. The new approach aims to introduce a method of linking public transport accessibility and parking standards with developer contributions, and encouraging more sustainable development in areas that can support good public transport services or provide good walking and cycling links. The major parking issues in the WDC area are: (1) town-centre development; (2) the development of the Western Sector area; (3) the development of the area next to High Wycombe railway station; (4) the extension of the special parking area (SPA); and (5) the integration of the park-and-ride (PAR) strategy. Tables compare parking standards for residential areas and for the public transport accessibility zones. WDC uses a method to calculate public transport journey times for all zone-to-zone movements in the District, and geographical information systems (GIS) to determine the population served within a specific time from each zone.