GWR respond to Charlbury residents' complaints

Thu 23 Feb 2017, 20:42

I know it's early days, but surely building a car park on the water meadow would have the following implications:

- building on a Zone 3 flood plain, with soakaways and gravel: soaking away to where exactly? If the drainage is not contained and sent to conventional water treatment, then we are talking about a hydraulic connection to the river. Contamination from car tyres, oil leaks, axle grease, exhaust pipes etc, all have the potential to leach heavy metals and oil into the groundwater and water course

- if the car park floods, then we are talking of standing water with a residence time allowing more contaminants to enter the water, and a slug of contaminants heading into the river when the flood recedes. The water meadow already has visible groundwater when river levels are elevated (let alone, heading towards flooding levels)

- visual and presumably light impact, with disturbance to wildlife
The majority of users won't be affected by this, as they will be commuting in and the water meadow isn't a vital habitat for their living, feeding and breeding purposes.

I cannot see any direct benefit to Charlbury from the expansion. If half of the parking commuters were coming into town to make use of the business and social amenities, then clearly this would be a benefit, but you only have to see at the end of each day, cars simply rush out, bypass Charlbury or use it as a through route to get home.

The other matter, as pointed out by Liz, is regard for pedestrians. How long has it been since that puddle opposite the station has been regularly forming, the one where drivers will go through it to miss one side of the speed hump, splashing water everywhere? Russian roulette for pedestrian commuters, plus overnight freeze results in a morning skating rink on the pavement. And then there's the impact of freeze-thaw cycles on the integrity of the pavement surface. (I regularly raised this with Theresa, the ex-station manager, who tried her best to pass this up the chain).

If a road cannot be built with decent levelling and drainage, I don't hold out much hope for the proper consideration of heavy rainfall events and flooding in the design of the new car parks, and how climate change may add to the problem. The "almost new" lower level car park already suffers from poor levelling / drainage. The only sustainability we are talking about is that of GWR and APCOA's revenues. You only have to recall how the pair of them managed the situation of late / cancelled trains and unfair short term parking fines - no pre-emptive thinking or consideration for those affected, just reactionary measures which were only implemented when pushed by those good few that are standing up for the rest of us.

I feel we are entering a stage of general speculative development and expansion of Charlbury. This needs to be addressed in a balanced and considerate way, which should include environmental and social benefits and disbenefits as a priority, the benefits being the main reasons why so many of us love, cherish and appreciate the privilege of living in this town.

PS. This not an attack on car owners, commuters or those that are involved in economic activities, I fall into all categories myself.