Another solution would be to prioritise, and perhaps even incentivise, planning permission for "no car" housing developments (within a certain distance of the town centre)....
E.g. the new houses up towards doxey, the planned houses for the Castleworks site, the planned(?) Burleyfields development, even Castlefields, if thought in advance would have been ideal for it.
Think about it, developments where houses do not come with any parking spaces, where covenants on the house owners prohibit them from owning cars, where there are no roads on the development.... easy walking distance for the town centre, combined with bus access for those with mobility difficulties, cycle routes....
People would NEED to walk, cycle or use public transport.... They would also mean people need to work locally or somewhere reasonably accessible by public transport.... Worst case scenario, you could even have (for example) 5 car parking spaces specifically for commercially run car pool cars where residents can access them for a set price per hour if they really need occasional access to a car.
These places would be much nicer environments to live with no chavs boy racing around, safer for kids to play knowing they couldn't get run over, no unsightly commercial vehicles and caravans blocking neighbours windows.....
Question is, could it ever happen.... I suppose in theory there is no reason why not. In reality though the builders will only build them like that if a) they can sell them and b) for as much or more than they could normal houses...