titlepage/contents pg 1-16 - British Parking Association

42 Chapter 4The Steps to producing aParking StrategyFigure 4.1 sets outdiagrammatically the twelve andrelatively discrete steps involved.Many practitioners will recognisethese steps and their use may bewell established, but they are setout here to help those who areless familiar with them. Chapter5 will deal with the formulation ofspecific schemes and policies,and the various issues andtopics that need to be taken intoaccount.Step 1: Identify thestrategy areaThe first step in the developmentof a parking strategy is to definethe geographical area underconsideration. In the UK, parkingstrategies can be developed byseveral tiers of local government,ranging in area from largemetropolitan authorities and cityunitary authorities to smalldistrict councils. The size andcharacteristics of the area willhave a significant effect upon thestrategy and the breadth of itsobjectives.A typical shire county parkingstrategy, for example, mightdefine countywide parkingpolicies with subsidiary parkingplans for a number of town ordistrict council areas. In contrast,a parking strategy for a unitarycity council might address thewhole urban area.It should be noted that withintwo-tier local authority areasthere is a range of workingarrangements that reflect theextent to which powers aredelegated under agencyagreements. These can varyeven within one County.Whatever the arrangement,there are clearly two areas toconsider within a parkingstrategy; the first being theTransportAuthority’sadministrative area and thesecond being the locally focusedoperational areas for whichparking plans might be required.A strategy may cover both policyand operational elements wheresuch areas are not coincident.Step 2: Determine themain issuesBoth top-down and bottom-upapproaches are required.The top-down approachconsists of responding to overarchingnational, regional andlocal objectives and policyguidance.The objectives of the transportplanning system will have beenbrought together and containedwithin the LTP. The parkingstrategy may provide one of themain mechanisms through whichLTP targets, such as those fortraffic reduction, modal shift andaccessibility, are to be achieved.Where a road-user hierarchy hasbeen defined within the LTP, thiswill help to define (in thestrategy) how street and kerbsidespace should be allocatedbetween competing user groups.Transport is key to spatialdevelopment and parkingmanagement is one of theprimary tools to influencesustainable patterns ofdevelopment and travel. As aconsequence, land use planningpolicies will also play a role indetermining the issues to beaddressed.The strategy not only needs toaddress the parkingrequirements of the present, butalso must be sufficiently robustto address future changes inparking demand. Determiningfuture levels of demand needs totake account of policy objectivesand targets. This is based on arecognition that demand forparking, as for any other good orservice, is subject to theinfluence of price, regulation andother factors. Nevertheless, suchinfluence will be based on therealities of demand provided byunderlying social and economictrends, the attraction of any newdevelopment demand, and theeffects of associated transportstrategies.The inter-relationship betweenfuture development and the