Broadway car park will be torn down, cabinet decides

Broadway car park is set to be demolished at a cost to the council – but the work will take nearly a year to complete.

Also known as the Nicholsons car park, it has been closed since New Year’s Eve for health and safety reasons.

Work has been ongoing with contractors and specialists to fully assess the crumbling structure.

Though safe to walk around, the car park is ‘certainly not safe from the inside,’ councillors heard at a meeting yesterday (July 27).

它有大的结构性问题,rusting metal and is leaking through the roof – and it would cost ‘hundreds of thousands of pounds – maybe up to a million’ to refurbish it at this point.

As such, the council’s cabinet signed off on a recommendation to put its demolition out to tender for contractors, in line with officer recommendations.

Broadway is ‘beyond its economic life,’ officers wrote, and not demolishing it would ‘attract anti-social behaviour’ and create ‘a lack of confidence for investment in the town centre'.

But demolishing it will also cost £3.15million.

Geoff Hill, cabinet member for Highways and Transport (TBFI, Oldfield), said it gave him ‘great regret’ to spend money to bring down a car park he wanted to preserve.

He lamented that a previous administration did not heed his warnings a decade ago when he held the parking brief.

At the time, Cllr Hill recommended refurbishing it and adding two extra floors – but this was vetoed because it was eventually going to be demolished anyway as part of the Nicholson Quarter regeneration.

The idea was that the borough would take a premium from the developers so the demolition wouldn't cost the council any money.

“That was 10 years ago. As we've seen with a lot of developments, it hasn’t gone according to plan,” said Cllr Hill.

He felt that, had the refurbishment taken place then, future demolition could happen in the council’s own time, rather than needing to do it now.

He said it could have waited for when Nicholsons is being redeveloped, taking a premium from the developer as planned.

“Had the Conservatives done the right thing, we wouldn't be spending this amount of money tearing an asset down,” he said. “We wouldn't be in this appalling mess.”

Cllr Karen Davies, cabinet member for climate change (Lib Dem, Clewer East) added her concerns over the environmental implications.

“From a sustainability point of view it’s always better to get maximum life out of what you've got, rather than knocking things down,” she said.

For now, a traffic management plan is in the works, with closures on Broadway ‘for quite some time’ and probably parts of King Street.

The demolition will take around 10 months. Given that approval has now been granted to seek to demolish, that means it should be finished at around this time next year.

As for the empty space that will be left, the council cannot make a decision yet on what to do there. It will be ‘quite expensive’ to resurface it.

“We may not have enough money to do it,” said Cllr Hill – especially in mind of the council’s serious financial issues, discussed in that very cabinet meeting.

Leader of the council, Simon Werner, said it ‘was incredibly disappointing’ that it’s going to take about a year to complete the demolition – but stressed that this is unavoidable.

Cllr Hill expressed his sympathy to bus and residents who have suffered as a result of lack of parking, acknowledging that drivers do not find the alternative Vicus Way and Hines Meadow car parks as convenient.

Currently, Grove Road and Hines Meadow car parks have ‘absorbed a significant amount of the short term and long-term parking demand,’ the Broadway report says.

Hines Meadow remains ‘significantly under capacity.’ At peak demand, weekdays and weekends, 58 per cent of spaces are used, leaving ‘significant capacity for visitor parking.’

As for the Vicus Way car park, it is too far out of the town centre for people, said Cllr Hill.

“It should never have been built – it’s in the wrong place and people are voting with their feet,” he said.

All in all, the Broadway car park situation is ‘a tragedy, an absolute tragedy,’ said Cllr Hill.

“We shouldn't be here,” he said.