Sandylands Sports Campus, Skipton: Access & Flow Study and Action Plan

Parking Perspectives recently carried out an access and flow study for the Sandylands Sports Campus in Skipton, North Yorkshire. We delivered an action plan with practical steps that the partners on site could take to improve access and circulation on foot, cycling or by car.

Context

The Sandylands Sports Campus, on the edge of Skipton, includes a sports centre, cricket, tennis and rugby clubs, and more. Under the stewardship of the Sandylands Active Community Partnership, it is an important and growing community hub and resource, drawing users from across the town and nearby rural areas. The clubs and organisations on site are working together, with support from North Yorkshire Council, to manage and improve the campus in a coordinated way for everyone’s benefit.

The challenge

Sandylands is a busy but constrained site. New facilities under construction will attract additional users but add to the pressure. The partner organisations have identified the need to improve the campus access and parking arrangements, in order to improve safety, make best use of the existing space and limited parking supply, establish better flow through the site, and create a better balance between pedestrian, cycle and car access. They required a practical strategy that all the partners could sign up to and that could start being delivered.

Approach

The strategy covered four areas:

·         Walking, wheeling and cycling

·         Internal circulation

·         Parking supply and demand

·         Wayfinding

We spent considerable time on and around the site, getting to know the issues and opportunities, seeing how the existing arrangements worked at different times of the day, and talking-through ideas with the client team. A key issue was how to respond to the growing level of parking demand. We worked with the partners to understand their appetite for different types of solution, including the balance between encouraging use of other modes, actively managing demand, and building more parking spaces. Another important area was improvements to pedestrian and cycle routes into and through the site. We also developed options for improving vehicular circulation to address conflicts on match days and other busy days, and ‘quick wins’ to improve operation and safety in the main car park.

Deliverable

Having agreed the preferred way forward, we delivered an action plan that included the access strategy, a list of actions and the ‘next steps’ for them, and a funding strategy. It included short, medium and long-term actions for the partners to either deliver themselves or work with others to deliver. The initial actions are now being progressed.

Client: North Yorkshire Council

Funding: North Yorkshire Sport