SOME students at a large accommodation block in Swansea city centre will be allowed to park there after councillors agreed to lift a restriction.
The owners of the Oldway Centre development on the corner of Orchard Street and High Street had applied to the council to lift the parking restriction, saying that students who left their cars at a church in Dyfatty a few hundred metres away had experienced anti-social behaviour walking back.
The owners also argued that case law had changed, meaning the original restriction that students could not keep a car on the public highway within a one-mile radius was not enforceable.
It was one of two changes to legal agreements made by members of the council’s planning committee at a meeting on April 1 – the other relating to a new housing development in Sketty.
The committee heard there was basement parking at the Oldway Centre for around 100 cars, and that due to a drop in demand for office parking the owners proposed allocating 40 of the spaces for the 556 or so students who occupied the accommodation.
Cllr Peter Black said the committee was often told that students in city centre accommodation didn’t bring cars but that now it appeared they actually did.
Cllr Mike Lewis said he felt the basement parking proposal was a very good idea as it would mean up to 40 cars not being parked on the public highway.
The committee also agreed to modify two aspects of a legal agreement between the council and a housing developer, Westacres Ltd, which is building 101 properties on former Olchfa School land in Sketty.
What it means is that Westacres Ltd will pay 50% of an education contribution prior to the 51st home being occupied instead of 30 homes as was originally the case. And the remaining 50% is to be paid prior to the occupation of the 85th property instead of the 75th.
A planning report said Westacres Ltd was not proposing to reduce the £844,028 education contribution, and that it had built affordable homes at the site earlier than had been programmed.
Westacres Ltd said in its application that the affordable homes were built at a financial loss and that it had also encountered unforeseen ground contamination at the site.
Cllr Mike Lewis said developers frequently cited ground contamination issues when they sought to alter legal agreements and asked if the council had substantiated Westacres Ltd’s assertion. A planning officer said the authority could have asked for a cost-analysis but that it had taken the contamination justification “at face value”.
Cllr Lewis this issue was “a bone of contention” for the committee and requested that the council looked “properly” at future ground contamination statements by developers.
