Shopping outlet's festive parking proposal refused

Parking at York's Designer Outlet has been described as "unmanageable" by staff

Expanded parking proposals focused on cutting Christmas congestion at a popular shopping outlet have been refused.

York Designer Outlet had applied to create an extra 340 staff spaces for use in November and December on nearby green belt land.

Centre manager Paul Tyler told York councillors that festive traffic "was unmanageable", leading to queues of up to 200 cars delaying those trying to leave the site.

Fulford Parish Council and National Highways both said the outlet had not exhausted other options and feared the plan could worsen congestion.

The Designer Outlet's application proposed creating the spaces on about 2.5 acres of land to the south of the shopping centre complex.

The complex has about 1,600 staff across shops and restaurants, with about 900 on-site at any one time ahead of Christmas.

The application also said up to 1,000 of the existing 2,700 public parking spaces were taken up by the Fulford Park and Ride.

'Leaving late'

A total of 20 public comments were lodged in support of the plans.

Mr Tyler told the committee the plans were a common sense solution to current issues.

The manager said: "Christmas is the busiest time of year for retail, traffic congestion becomes unmanageable.

"It means buses can't get into the centre or out, Park and Ride users are queueing and staff cannot get to the centre on time and are leaving late."

Objectors said the plans would not address the issue, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

They also said they were also concerned about the impact on green belt land and the lack of capacity at the A19/A64 junction.

Planning committee chair Labour's Dave Merrett said he did not see how the plans could be approved in their current form.

The chair said: "This isn't what we want to see, the Designer Outlet is an important part of the York economy.

"But we have very clear views on this that the applicant needs to meet if they're going to get the blockage removed."

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