Leader’s rethink much welcomed

Canterbury District Green Party is heartened to hear that the new leader of the city council is going to take a fresh look at the plans to extend the Wincheap Park & Ride onto Wincheap Water Meadows [‘New man in charge to lead a digital revolution’, Gazette, Sep 17].

Quite apart from the desirability or not of the Park & Ride facilities in this area, the water meadows and the trees adjacent to them form an important role in flood prevention, already a losing battle with the extreme weather events we can expect as climate change proceeds apace. Readers will remember the extensive flooding which took place there last winter; it would have rendered the extra parking spaces unusable just before Christmas, the key time for sales by Canterbury retailers. Moreover, Wincheap Water

Meadows are outside the city boundary and form part of the Stour Valley Local Wildlife Site, part of the Stour Green Corridor and part of an Area of High Landscape Value. Any encroachment into the Valley constitutes urbanisation of the countryside and, as such, would run counter to established council policies, let alone the council’s declaration of a climate emergency.

Last but certainly not least, parked cars beside the Stour would be a real eyesore for the many users of the Great Stour Way, which provides a valuable source of recreation and reinvigoration.

Yes, please, Cllr Fitter-harding, have a complete rethink of the plans and save the water meadows from a fate which would cause genuine sadness for Canterbury residents, not to mention the environmental vandalism it would involve.

Pat Marsh

Canterbury District Green Party

It is encouraging to read that the new leader of the council agrees that the issue of the proposed extension of Wincheap Park and Ride onto the water

meadows “needs completely looking at again”.

Indeed, he says that “the whole provision for park and ride needs considering”.

He is absolutely right. Park and ride schemes clearly have a role to play in a transport strategy. But they are not a panacea. They can help, but only if they are in the right place. The danger is that if they are wrongly sited, they may actually encourage people to use their cars more, and public transport less. They may then increase congestion rather than reduce it, and become a subsidy for car users rather than promoting active travel.

So yes, please rethink plans for this particular park and ride. And please do so in the context of provision for park and ride as a whole, and its place in the larger transport strategy.

But I hope also that in conducting that rethink, Cllr Fitter-harding and his colleagues will get their facts right. He is quoted as saying that the green space where the park and ride extension might be located is “behind an industrial estate”. It’s actually behind a retail area. And the facts are important for a number of reasons.

First, the word ‘behind’ is misleading. It is near the retail area but is by no means part of it. It is outside the boundary of the designated urban area. It is an integral part of the water meadows and the riverside corridor, part of the Stour Valley, the Area of High Landscape Value, and the functional floodplain.

Second, the very fact that the river valley is separate from but close to the urban area is an important part of its value. It offers a quick and immediate escape from the city into the countryside. Its appeal has been very apparent during the Covid lockdown, when so many people have seized on the opportunity to walk and cycle along the river valley and enjoy its rural character, which would be destroyed by locating a car park there.

The area of land which can correctly be described as “behind the industrial estate” is actually further downstream. This is precisely the area which the council has proposed to designate as a Local Nature Reserve. So the council itself recognises that being close to the urban area may well be a good reason for protecting green spaces rather than building on them. That correct logic certainly needs to be applied to the Wincheap Meadow and the proposal for a car park there.

Please, then, Cllr FitterHarding, conduct the thorough rethink which you rightly propose. Please do so on the basis of the full facts. And please involve in that rethink the many local people who use and value the river valley and the water meadows.

Richard Norman

St Michael’s Place, Canterbury

New council leader Ben Fitter-harding’s promise to rethink the Wincheap Park and Ride expansion has been welcomed