Waterloo car park residents’ forum update

Cotswold District Council held a forum yesterday for Waterloo residents and businesses to provide feedback on the proposed Waterloo car park project.

Lead project officers and council representatives heard concerns and answered questions from residents and local businesses and provided an update on the project including the latest facade designs that will be taken to the Council prior to being submitted for planning permission.

A planning consultant from The Environment Partnership, responsible for carrying out an Environmental Impact Assessment, gave an update on the studies being carried out to better understand the potential impact of the car park on air quality, noise, light and traffic levels, as well as outlining some of the measures that might be required to mitigate any impact.

Earlier this summer, the council consulted on three concept designs for the proposed car park façade. During this consultation, a public display was held at the Fleece Hotel where members of the public completed voting cards to give their views. Respondents were asked to provide comments on the design options and vote for their preferred designs in order of preference. An online survey was also completed throughout the Cotswold district. The council received large public feedback with over 1200 responses to the consultation.

In addition, the consultation asked respondents about the principle of a multi-story car park on the Waterloo site. The consultation revealed that 83 per cent supported the principle of a multi-story car park and 17 per cent were against.

The design with the fewest public votes was eliminated (Hare and Mosaic, by AHR) and the two remaining architects (Aluminium on Stone, by PCH-a and Wooden Weave, by BDP) were invited to the council offices to discuss technical aspects of the design including materials and fire safety as well as costs.

The council also assessed how well it could work with the architects and their flexibility to taking on board comments from the public and key inputs from planning, conservation and heritage.

Following successful workshops with the remaining architects, the council awarded PCH-a with the contract to develop the concept design of Aluminium on Stone

Some of the key areas of feedback that were addressed in the new façade designs included:

• ‘Breaking up the mass’ of the structure, by introducing recesses to elevations;
• Introducing green walls;
• Use of subtler colours in the metal façade.

The latest designs can be viewed, here: https://cotswold.gov.uk/media/xdnlpdkp/waterloo-car-park-facade-option-6-design.pdf

For more information on the Waterloo car park project please visit our website: https://cotswold.gov.uk/parking-travel-and-visitors/parking-projects/