Land use plan - Manchester Airport

Surface Access and Car Parking
hire and pick-up and drop-off activity. Our policy is to
reduce the traffic caused by this activity. We have now
introduced restrictions on passenger pick-up. This has
been achieved by restricting access to the terminal
forecourts and altering charges. In the longer term we
intend to consider further measures such as cordon
charging and other access restrictions.
Short Stay Car Parking
The most intensively used public car parks at the Airport
are those designated for short stay parking, and are
close to the three terminals. There are currently 5,375
short stay spaces in three multi storey car parks and a
further 450 surface spaces. Analysis of short stay car
parking demand indicates that air passengers driving
themselves represent a minority of users; the majority are
people accompanying air passengers, or meeting them
on arrival.
The provision of short-stay parking is essential for the
safe and efficient operation of the road network and
terminals. We will continue to provide this type of parking
within the central area, and adjacent to each terminal.
Schemes to increase capacity will be brought forward as
part of the terminal development strategy. We anticipate
that the overall demand for short stay spaces will rise by
around 1,500 by 2015.
SA10 We will develop additional short stay parking
capacity within the central terminal area. This is
most likely to include extensions to existing
multi-storey car parks at Terminal 2 and Terminal
3 along with the possibility of a new multi-storey
car park to the rear of Commonwealth House.
Long Stay Car Parking
Long-stay car parking is currently provided by both the
Airport Company and at sites run by independent
operators off site. 10,901 long-stay spaces are currently
provided on the Airport site but the majority of spaces for
this type of parking are ‘offsite’ ( 60%) in car parks that
are independently managed and operated. In 2006 there
were 15,727 off-airport spaces on 27 sites. The
development of off-airport sites is subject to local
authority planning policy.
Within the Airport site, long stay car parks are operated
in two ways. A vehicle can be ‘self-parked’ by a
passenger on surface car parks remote from the
terminals. These passengers can either have pre-booked
a space or just turned up at the Airport. These
passengers are then transferred to the terminals by
courtesy bus. Alternatively passengers can pre-book a
parking space and have their car ‘block parked’. The
passenger gives details of their departure and arrival
times and reports to a designated reception area and
then bussed to the terminal complex. The vehicle is then
parked in a column of cars that are arranged so that they
can be easily returned for the passenger to collect.
‘Block parking’ is a more efficient use of land, but it relies
on a passenger having a precise travel schedule. This
lack of flexibility is unattractive for some travellers and
means that the Airport has to cater for a range of
different car park activity including a large number who
arrive at the Airport and expect to find adequate and
convenient car parking capacity.
As the Airport develops, it is important that our Land Use
Plan recognises that a number of land uses have very
precise location requirements. These include taxiways,
apron and terminal facilities and are concentrated in the
centre of the site. This has resulted in several land uses
being pushed towards the periphery. In the case of longstay
and staff car parking, these are uses that are largely
open in character, low level and low density. This can be
a better use than more intrusive built development
adjoining residential or rural areas.
Whilst off - a i r p o rt operators contribute to the total supply
of parking spaces, their operation is typically pre - b o o k e d ,
is often seasonal, and they can control their occupancy
levels. Surplus demand from the off-site operators
typically falls to us to provide, this means that we need to
p rovide our own facilities. Limiting the overall supply of
long stay spaces also encourages an increase in ro a d
t r a ffic associated with the dropping off and picking up of
air passengers. An increase in overall car parking capacity
will be a necessary feature of our future development as
our passengers need the certainty of supply and we will
e n s u re that a sufficient level of parking provision is made
in line with our Ground Tr a n s p o rt Plan. Our fore c a s t s
show a need to accommodate a peak re q u i rement for
a p p roximately 35,000 long-stay spaces on or off airport
when passenger throughput reaches around 40 million
passengers a year. Car park demand and supply beyond
2015 will be kept under re v i e w.
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