4. The Village Plans: the built environment

A considerable amount of effort, most in fact, has gone into the built environment of the parish plan, not the least because this would make the most impact on our village. We envisage a major change to the built environment in terms of the street paving and pedestrian areas, and some solutions to the ever-present problems of parking and congestion.

For ease of reference, the built environment plans have been designated as areas 1, 2, 3, and 4. They are:
" Area 1: Top o'the Town and Church Street:
" Area 2: Village Centre and Memorial Square:
" Area 3: Glossop Road: relief road junction
" Area 4: Old Station site.

The prime considerations, and certainly those gleaned from the surveys carried out, are pedestrian safety, parking and access. Hayfield is cluttered with motor vehicles of all types, and in addition has movements of goods vehicles not only for the commercial premises but also for the existing paper converters. Part of the 18th and 19th century heritage has been to leave the modern village with a dearth of safe pavements for pedestrians. Most of Church Street for example has no pavement at all, and given the parking congestion, pedestrians are obliged to use the main carriageway, invariably in the traffic lane, since parked vehicles at most times of day and night force pedestrians into the middle of the road.

As has been shown in the introduction to this Village Plan (see page 9), car ownership in Hayfield is truly astonishing: some 40.9% of households own 2 or more vehicles, which we calculate conservatively at some 1,400 cars, vans or motorcycles, not allowing for those engaged in trades and professions requiring their own commercial transport. Laid bumper to bumper, private vehicles owned or driven by Hayfield residents would stretch a total of 3.5 miles, from St Matthew's Church to St George's in New Mills.

Parking problems are endemic in Hayfield, given the extraordinary level of vehicle ownership. The majority of village centre houses are two or three storey terraces, with little more than a 4 or 5 metre frontage, and in most cases there is no space within the curtilage for parking. If only every alternate house has two cars, then it can be seen just how parking is such a huge problem.

Given that public transport accounts for only 7.7% of work-related journeys and that 80% of the population travels outside the village for employment (see page 18), then we can calculate that around 60-70 work journeys are by public transport, and a massive 850+ are by private means. Not the least urgent problem that this Village Plan seeks to address is the amelioration of public transport services, to curb the inexorable rise in car use and ownership.

Included as an appendix to this Village Plan are the detailed deliberations of the Traffic Group working party. Most of the comments have been incorporated into the designs in areas 1-4, a tribute to the farsightedness of a dedicated group. Their work has been included in toto to show the huge contribution their deliberations have made to the overall shape of this Plan.

PLANS