PARKING:

 

Lewesian's responded to Santon's consultations by saying: “We want to see better traffic flows, without creating rat runs down residential streets.”

 

Santon has said they will be:

1. Testing every metre of proposed road to ensure that we understand its impact on congestion and will publish the survey results at our forthcoming workshop.

2. Focusing in particular on the Causeway to provide a more pedestrian friendly solution that gives pedestrians priority over cars, without reducing the traffic capacity.

3. Thinking about locations to improve bus set down areas at the gateway to the town centre.

4. Making the design “low-speed by default”, using hard landscaped areas as shared surface spaces forcing traffic to flow and slow.

 

Sceptics point out that a significant increase in population is only going to increase traffic issues. Yes, the developer can create an extra road into the site to help traffic flow around the site, however they will not be able to change the fact they will be introducing more traffic into the town which will make people use residential roads as rat runs.

 

There is also a plan for a 500 place car park on the site which will mean more cars around the area. However it is still a significant walk to the shops when carrying bags and with young families, so in reality people on the estate will still be driving into town and increasing the pressure on the central car parks. There has been no comment or guidelines about the level of parking charges.