19/00698/VAR

34A Davenant Road Oxford Oxfordshire OX2 8BY

9 April 2019

Removal of condition 13 (Parking permits) of planning permission 17/01202/FUL (Demolition of existing dwellinghouse and garage. Erection of 1x 5-bed dwellinghouse (Use Class C3) and 2x 4-bed semi-detached dwellinghouses (Use Class C3), provision of car parking and alterations to access and landscaping) to allow residents and visitors permits to be issued in respect of all the properties.

The Civic Society supports the arguments of local residents that Davenant Road is sufficiently busy, and very likely to get busier, for additional demands for on on-street parking to be resisted on safety grounds. The applicant has argued that, by limiting the number of on-site parking spaces, the development discourages car usage and therefore supports “green” policies. That argument clearly contradicts the applicant’s request for on-street parking permits.  The location is indeed one where residents can make very good use of public transport, cycling and walking.  It should also be noted that Oxfordshire County Council makes 50 Visitors’ Parking Permits available annually, half of them free of charge, to any resident over the age of 17, regardless of whether they have a vehicle or not.

The present application arises directly from the applicant’s decision to reduce the number of on-site parking places so that the number of houses on the site could be increased from two to three, in the course of which the application fails to meet the council’s housing policy requiring 2 parking spaces for each 4-bed dwelling.

The imposition of condition 13 has been considered and tested, not only at the time of consent, but at subsequent appeal, and has been found well justified. Circumstances have not changed such as to diminish the demand for parking or in other ways, since these events; rather the reverse, and despite the volume of irrelevant material presented in the Transport Statement accompanying this application, there are no grounds for now removing the condition.

The original reasons for objecting to the earlier application still stand. They were supported by the Planning Inspector’s conclusion that the previous application should be rejected.