Extra parking spaces for K2 Leisure Centre approved

Crawley Borough Council will be adding 64 parking spaces at the K2 Leisure Centre.
K2 Crawley hosted a free open day following a recent £300,000 upgrade of the gym. Pic Steve Robards   SR1601966 SUS-160116-125100001K2 Crawley hosted a free open day following a recent £300,000 upgrade of the gym. Pic Steve Robards   SR1601966 SUS-160116-125100001
K2 Crawley hosted a free open day following a recent £300,000 upgrade of the gym. Pic Steve Robards SR1601966 SUS-160116-125100001

An application was put before the council’s planning committee on Monday (July 3) which stated that demand for parking at the centre, in Brighton Road, regularly exceeded the number of spaces available.

The centre currently has 472 parking spaces, but a parking survey, carried out in February, said demand was so high that 26 cars were seen to be parked in unauthorised areas on one Monday evening alone.

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In addition, the survey said parking stress for drivers using regular bays and parent & child bays was “100 per cent” all day Saturday and almost all of Monday. 

The figure was 73 per cent for people using the disabled bays.

No expansion work will be carried out, with the additional space being found by removing 27 trees and the landscaped islands dotted throughout the car park, while changing the layout of the parking bays.

Planning officers initially raised concerns about the impact the loss of so many trees would have, and the application includes 30 replacement trees – pin oaks and Norway maples.

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Pin oaks will be planted at the front of the site, on the junction with Brighton Road, which officers said would be “a significant improvement to the appearance of the car park”.

Martin Stone (Con/Ifield), who also owns the Topsy Turvy hairdressers, in The Boulevard, described the application as “great” and said his staff constantly complained about the parking at K2.