Recently Central Bedfordshire Council had a parking survey carried out, which
was discussed with the Chamber of Trade and the Town Council. The recommendations included an on
street parking charge in the town centre. Both Chamber of Trade and the Town
Council oppose this most vigorously, and as a result the Town Council has
produced its own parking strategy in consultation with the Chamber of Trade.
Basically the Town Council strategy removes the proposed car parking charges
on street and rearranges what exists to allow for 1, 2, and 3 hour areas to
park. There is very little "longer term" car parking close to the centre and this
is impacting the potential trade for town's shops.
This will be discussed at the Biggleswade Joint Committee to promote the Town
Council's approach and to protect the town’s trade. The new retail park in London Road will will have a 4 hour free
car parking policy.
The document was available with the Agenda for the Town Council Meeting of 14th January 2014 but only if you collected it from the Town Council Offices. I have not seen this document published on the Town Council website.
The Biggleswade Chamber of Trade have published the document on their web site.
'If you want to kill a town centre introduce car parking charges' might seem a reasonable retort to this proposal.
ReplyDeleteBut does it?
Actually it seems nobody is able to say for sure - even the Association of Town & City Management's report "Re-think Parking on the High Street" admits that "... further research is needed over time to learn more about the relationship between town centre prosperity and parking tariffs and that mid-range and smaller centres (like Biggleswade) in particular, must play a role here."
But why take the risk and spend a lot of money on introducing parking charges that may not be needed? Just good management should suffice - surely??
From observation it seems that the biggest problem Biggleswade has is caused by parking by commuters (presumably from outside of Biggleswade) using the railway station. So why not concentrate on solving that issue. For example, why not introduce free parking at the station for commuters that have season tickets? Easily done at first glance - you get a permit to stick in the car when you buy your season ticket. Sadly that is unlikely to be within the remit of the Council to do that. And the rail operators are too busy squeezing every last penny out of their 'customers' (the cash cow culture) to look at the social and environmental impact of the consequences of their charging policies.
The Town Council report does look at commuter (presumably station related) parking:
"The Task Group considered commuter parking and the need to encourage commuters to park in the car parks provided by Network Rail"
and seems to suggest encouraging this by introducing residents-only parking schemes in the streets surrounding the station. But this doesn't solve the issue while parking charges remain at the station as commuters will just park for free elsewhere.
Notice that the blue shaded area for proposed residents-only parking schemes in the report appendix dominates the estate roads south of the A6001 as far as Holme Court Avenue. But if you measure the distance that commuters are prepared to walk from a parked car to get to the station (lets use the blue shaded area in the Appendix as a guide) then it stands to reason that the blue area should be extended the same distance in all directions from the rail station - this would mean introducing residents-only parking as far away as Potton Road and part of the Trees Estate, and then roads off Drove Road as far as Rowan Crescent to the east. That's a lot of Biggleswade. Is that what residents want?
ReplyDeleteAnd going back to the town centre parking - why free parking only for the first hour before charges start to be applied? This is going to have a knock-on effect to those businesses that rely on customers taking a leisurely shopping trip in to town and maybe having a cup of coffee and meeting friends. I was at a Town Council meeting when this was previously discussed some time ago, Cllr Pat Rouse arguing that two hours free parking should be the minimum to allow for ladies (and others) to get their hair done - successfully at the time it seems.
Think about all the things that you can do in town - while spending your money/accessing services - that cumulatively need more than an hour. Are people going to be leisurely if they have to pay? Will people just move their cars elsewhere when the hour is up? Will town centre visits just become hour-long snippets of an increasingly stressed existence? And how do you estimate if you are going to take more than an hour or not and whether you need to pay? And how much are the charges likely to be?
Look at the ill feeling reported in the local press when both ASDA and ALDI introduced restrictive parking backed up by excessive penalty charges. Even ASDA recently increased the parking allowance in response to pressure from the Town Council (2012) and angry shoppers (I was one of them - have you experienced the stress of receiving a parking charge demand and all that follows?) that the existing 2 hours free parking was not enough(!).
The Town Council needs to look again at this whole issue if it's to be seen as having residents' interests - and consequently the town and its businesses and its future prosperity - at heart.
Especially as the new Retail Park development is likely to add further pressure on the viability of the town centre....
Offering free car parking at the station for rail commuters is one way to help the situation. Not sure who manages the station car park (I assume they set the charges and reap the income) but if it's the station's train operatin comapny (First Capital Connect) they could look at the example from Chiltern Railways who offer free commuter parking at stations for car sharers.
ReplyDelete