Campaigners study parking at planned Tesco (From Kingston Guardian)

Campaigners' car park study on effects of new Tesco Metro in Ashtead Village

1:03pm Wednesday 27th June 2012 in News By Hardeep Matharu

Tesco has seriously underestimated the impact on parking from its proposed Metro store in Ashtead, according to a new study.

SAVE Ashtead’s Village Environment campaigning group(SAVE) does not oppose having a Tesco on The Street, but believes a lack of parking for shoppers will cause a parking crisis in the village and negatively affect the existing car parking spaces in the town.

Tesco has said there will be sufficient parking, including in the Ashtead Peace Memorial Hall (APMH) car park and at Grove Road, for all Tesco users in all in situations including on the store’s busiest days.

But SAVE, which does not represent the views of any other group, has now submitted a report based on car parking counts - which it says proves there will not be enough parking provision.

The report said: "The car park counts carried out in March and our parking analysis combine to clearly demonstrate that the parking figures included in Tesco’s current planning application not only lack credibility but also very significantly underestimate the parking demand, and the adverse parking impacts, in Ashtead village arising from Tesco’s proposed store."

The counts were carried out at the APMH and Grove Road car parks on 20 weekdays, concentrated around mid-mornings and mid-afternoons.

Among the results, the report stated there "were only seven mornings during the counting period when there were sufficient short-stay spaces in the APMH car park to fully meet even Tesco’s own lower peak morning estimate".

Simon Petar, corporate affairs manager at Tesco, said: "Our professional transport analysis has looked at all scenarios including existing car parking spaces in the whole of the village.

"There are more than enough parking spaces."