A PLAN for more car parking in Whitchurch has been approved by Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council (BDBC).

A planning application put before the borough council’s development control committee on May 9 to add a nine new car parking spaces to the ten already in Bell Street.

In a report, put forward by Pure Town Planning, in the meeting documents read: “The proposal is to realign the parking spaces to provide an additional nine car parking spaces (19 in total).

“The proposed development is intended to be undertaken in conjunction with a proposed housing development of two semi-detached dwellings on land immediately to the southwest of the site.

“The proposal will ensure that the use of the car park by those residents will not result in a loss of public car parking capacity.”

Committee member Councillor David Potter said the panel should make sure the altruistic work that was being done would remain so in the future.

He said at the meeting: “The principle that we would end up with, dare I say it, a housing development which is dependent upon access through a public car park through to that private housing development, with all the implications that go with that, IE through traffic converging with parking traffic with the public use of the car park just seems in principle to me, unacceptable.”

One of the solutions proposed was the potential for the borough council building a barrier on the land controlled by the council to control any potential traffic to a private housing area.

The application was approved by the committee.

However, it was agreed chair of the panel, Cllr Paul Miller, would sign and send a memo to the council’s property services department about the points raid.