Local Place Making - Transport, Parking and Utilities

So that the Borough remains an attractive place to live, we will draw up policies and undertaking masterplanning to ensure that new development creates good new places, or enhances existing places. Good local places may include a mix of well designed energy efficient housing with strong local community and recreational facilities, shops and services. These walkable neighbourhoods are likely to be designed to encourage healthy lifestyles, enhance the natural environment, cherish local heritage, and have good access to jobs.

New technical work is needed to understand the highway and other transport impacts of the amount of development being proposed over the next 20 years and the growth in travel that would occur even if no new development was planned. The work is also needed to help identify what new improvements are necessary to the local road network, bus and rail services, and cycling and walking infrastructure to support development, encourage sustainable travel choices and avoid significant road congestion.

The existing Parking Strategy (2014-26) will be the starting point for new policy development. It will be reviewed to take account of changes to existing parking following the completion of new developments in the Feethams area, and to understand and plan for more that is needed by 2036. The general approach to short stay, long stay, contract car parking and residents parking zones set out in the IPPS is likely to be retained, to support town centre vitality and manage demand.

We will work with the major utility providers to make sure that all new development can be readily connected to ICT, gas, electric, water supply and sewerage facilities without delay, and that this can be done without harming the delivery of these utilities to existing homes and businesses already in the Borough. To support local businesses and improve residents’ quality of life, it is proposed to ask for superfast broadband capability for all new developments.

All this will be set out in an Infrastructure Delivery Plan, to be prepared alongside the new Local Plan.

 

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Local Place Making - Transport, Parking and Utilities Re Transport Many times the morning and evening traffic along the A167 Motorway interchange to / from Darlington town centre is already jammed. There are no easy alternative routes and road widening does not seem to be an option. Have planners given consideration to Park & Ride faciities to ease congestion on major routes into town on A167 and A 66 roads?
Local Place Making - Transport, Parking and Utilities A more cohesive bus service plan needs to be put in place. We need to link up villages with regular services, rather than reducing them or taking them off without even public consultation. This should form part of the overall sustainable transport strategy. Unfortunately, many areas in the town are served by services of high frequency (5-7 minutes), whilst others (e.g. villages), are left with either an hourly service or none at all.
Local Place Making - Transport, Parking and Utilities Pedestrianisation and traffic flow management within the town centre (especially speed of traffic) needs to be looked at. We also need a safer way to manage the bus flow in the town centre. The bus stops are not necessarily in the right places, and we could do with an outdoor bus station.