Subscribe to trusted local news
In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.
- Subscription costs less than £1 a week with an annual plan.
Already a subscriber? Log in here.
15
Sept
Crescent Gardens developer charges for parking on its private road- undercutting council
A property development firm that bought a public road in Harrogate town centre from North Yorkshire Council is using it for car parking and is undercutting the council’s own charges.
Impala Estates bought the old council office building for £4 million in 2000 and has planning permission to convert it into offices, a roof garden, restaurant and gym, with two-storey extension.
It then bought Crescent Gardens, the road that runs along the front of the building, from North Yorkshire Council for £250,000.
That purchase met with considerable opposition. Some critics felt on principle that a public road should not be sold off, others were concerned about the loss of parking spaces in the town centre, and many thought the price paid was too low for in-demand town-centre space.
Crescent Gardens is a private road but has not been stopped up.
Documents submitted to the council during the planning process revealed that Impala would install planters and retractable bollards at either end of the road to prevent public vehicles passing, creating a more “traffic-free environment around one of Harrogate’s key heritage assets”.
The Department for Transport granted a stopping-up order and James Hartley, director of Impala Estates, told the Stray Ferret earlier this year that the move would create a “safer, greener, and more vibrant town centre”.
Two years earlier, he told us the road changes would provide the building with “a well-managed and enhanced setting", which would “link the building better with the gardens opposite, achieving a clear public benefit.”
Parking on Crescent Gardens is now administered by UKCPS.
But while the planters are in place at the side of the road, there is no sign of the bollards, and the road has not been stopped up. Work appears not to be progressing on the former council buildings either.
Instead, the parking bays formerly operated by the council, and whose charges went into council coffers, are now operated on behalf of Impala by parking firm UKCPS. Drivers are charged £1.20 per hour for the spaces, substantially less than the council’s rate of £1.90 per hour charged on spaces immediately adjacent to Impala’s – effectively undercutting the council on land it used to own.
Impala charges £1.20 per hour for parking spaces on the road it bought from the council.
The council's parking machine charges £1.90 per hour.
Questioned about the charges, a spokesperson for North Yorkshire Council said simply:
This was a project that was started by the former Harrogate Borough Council with the sale of Crescent Gardens.
It is now a private road which Impala Estates owns and can introduce their own charges.
They declined to give any opinion regarding the pricing of Impala’s parking charges.
Asked about his company’s apparent strategy of undercutting the council, Mr Hartley said:
There is nothing intentional in our parking charges, we are proving good-value parking within the town centre, this hopefully increasing visitor numbers to the town, which in turn help local businesses thrive.
Impala bought the former council offices for £4 million in 2020.
The redevelopment of the building appears to have stalled. Impala has fitted triple glazing, repointed the stonework and installed EV charging infrastructure, but little has changed outwardly at the site for some time.
Asked about the apparent lack of progress, Mr Hartley said:
The planning application that has been granted on the road has conditions attached to it such as travel management plans, in which we are working through them with the Council allowing them to be discharged. Once these are approved this will allow us to commence works implementing the planning permission that has been granted.
With regard to the works to the building we are on with constructing the new substation at the west end of the property and are working closely with Northern Powergrid to move 2,000KVA substations from within the building to the new substation.
These power a considerable amount of central Harrogate. As you can imagine, there is a huge amount of work to do such a thing, and it unfortunately takes considerable time to achieve this.
0