Residents have mixed views about a planning application to build four terraced houses on the site of 22 lock up garages in Grenside Road (EBC 2020/3495). While new homes would be welcome, and would look much smarter than the current garages, the resulting loss of parking spaces for local residents is a serious worry.

Unfortunately, the application seems misleading about parking – it claims there are ZERO spaces at present (where even the application’s own photos show parked cars) and that it would be creating four additional parking spaces: ‘Existing spaces 0, Proposed spaces 4’.  In reality, it would be taking away spaces used by current residents, and giving some of them to the new homes.

The application’s Transport Technical Note explains that ‘the garage site is within private ownership therefore cannot be relied upon for off-street car parking’. It does not mention the currently used parking spaces on the access road, where the ‘new’ spaces are proposed.  Strangely, it even gets the site location wrong – it shows the development site covering part of the Broadwater Path and a large patch of St George’s Junior School land.

What is needed is some coordinated action to ensure Grenside Road residents have somewhere to park – for example, on-street in Grenside Road, where currently places are taken by heavy school-related parking during termtime.  If suitable controls can be brought in, then residents may even welcome the addition of smart new homes.

The challenge is that while planning consent is given by Elmbridge Borough Council, on-street parking controls are decided by Surrey County Council.  Yet Surrey have repeatedly refused to acknowledge that the parking issues (and traffic issues) in Grenside Road are serious enough to require effective action – despite evidence like the photos accompanying this article.

PPDRA strongly supports residents’ attempts to get the parking issues looked at again, in the light of this planning application.