A recommendation to refuse a new 150-space car park for the Lake District has been criticised for ignoring ongoing parking chaos.
The Lake District Park Authority’s Development Control Committee will discuss the application by Lingholm Private Trust for land at Ullock Moss on Wednesday, November 5.
Lingholm Private Trust wants to create a car park, toilet block, bike hire facilities and space to operate a shuttle bus.
Authority officers have recommended the scheme, on Cupboard Field, be refused.
But the architects behind the scheme claim the authority’s officers have disregarded clear, professional evidence of serious highway hazards on the Portinscale to Catbells route.
The trust and its agents, Crosby Granger Architects, said they had been hopeful of resolving the issue after five years of discussion.
They point to an independent road safety assessment carried out earlier this year by Nicholson Sloan Consultancy which identified numerous danger points where pedestrians are routinely forced into live traffic, verges are collapsing into the carriageway, and emergency access is compromised.
However, the officers’ report to the committee dismisses the assessment, claiming there is “insufficient evidence to conclude that an unacceptable highway safety issue or hazard exists”.
Chris Granger, managing director of Crosby Granger Architects, said: “That statement is indefensible. The evidence is there in the record, in photographs, and in the hundreds of enforcement notices issued every year.
“The highways authority cited safety issues as the justification for introducing double yellow lines. They haven’t worked and to suggest the problem has gone away is not professional judgement – it is a dangerous misrepresentation of fact.”
Mr Granger confirmed that if the committee followed the officers’ advice, a formal appeal would be lodged immediately.
He added: “The report contains assumptions that are demonstrably incorrect and conclusions that cannot withstand scrutiny.
“Those errors will now be used as the basis of an appeal which will test, line by line, the accuracy and veracity of the officer’s claims.
“This is not about convenience. It is about public safety, responsibility and accountability.
“To ignore clear professional evidence of risk is an abdication of duty. If this recommendation is endorsed, it will be appealed — and overturned.”
