Bolton Parking Strategies

CBO Transport was commissioned by Bolton Council to prepare parking strategies for Horwich and Westhoughton - the two principal town centres in the west of the Borough.  This work followed on from Strategic Masterplans CBO had helped prepare for the town centres, working in a multi-disciplinary team lead by BDP.

Both towns provide free car parking so there was no ticket sales data to establish a baseline position from.  The first task therefore was to undertake detailed surveys to establish baseline positions with regard to parking supply, demand and duration of stay for both off street car parks and on street parking.  CBO commissioned specialist survey company Streetwise to undertake this survey work on a weekday and Saturday in both towns.

Using this data CBO established when car parking was busiest and whether it was being used by long stay commuters or short stay visitors. 

In Horwich the evidence showed that the town’s most convenient car parks were filling up with commuters early in the morning and visitors were therefore being forced to use less convenient peripheral car parks.  CBO's recommendations in Horwich were that a number or car parks should be designated short stay and that there would be benefit in providing some additional off street parking.

In Westhoughton there was an over reliance on private parking so CBO's recommendation was that additional publicly controlled off street parking would be beneficial.  Again, there was a recommendation to designate some parking as short stay. 

CBO benchmarked the parking in the towns with that in other town in neighbouring authorities.  In all these towns parking was free so the recommendation was that free parking in Horwich and Westhoughton was maintained.