A York city centre car park could open around the clock to mitigate for the loss of parking once the area around Clifford’s Tower is transformed.
What was the £15m Castle Gateway scheme is now the modified Castle & Eye project, which would cost between £9.5m and £9.9m.
It would see the Castle Car Park disappear, turned into a series of green spaces and gardens.
That would lead to a loss of 268 car parking spaces in the city centre.The 30 blue badge spaces would be retained.
Castle Car Park brings in revenue of £1.8m a year. But its closure might only cost City of York Council between £90,000 and £500,000 a year, assuming some of the drivers choose to park in nearby council car parks, according to a new report.
To mitigate the loss of Castle Car Park, the council has been exploring how to make more use of Coppergate Car Park.
This could see the multi-storey operate 24 hours. It has 276 spaces, including 28 for blue badge holders.
A report to the council says: “The closure of Castle car park would lead to a loss of 265 parking spaces within the Castle Gateway Scheme.
“Through analysis of parking data there is the potential to accommodate much of this within the Coppergate car park which runs below occupancy for the majority of the year.
“To optimise use of this residual capacity, a variety of measures are proposed to be employed, including measures to allow 24-hour parking, better signage to the car parks, extended opening hours and cosmetic improvements.
“The works to the Coppergate car park are estimated to cost £200k.”
The report recognises that many York businesses are concerned that the closure of Castle Car Park would negatively impact them.
Given the upgrade of Coppergate Car Park, the potential of more people using other forms of transport due to parking price increases, and overnight Park & Ride services, “it is considered that impacts on footfall and businesses are capable of being adequately mitigated”.
The report says: “The proposals represent a more socially equitable and ‘place-based’ approach to use of prime city centre land and dramatically improve the setting for the nationally important historic buildings and heritage assets in the area.
“The scheme will also act as a catalyst for the wider Castle Gateway masterplan area, with projects brought forward for delivery as funding and viability permit.”
The report goes to the corporate scrutiny committee next Wednesday (1 October) recommends the Castle & Eye scheme goes ahead
