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PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2013 11:45 
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IAM wrote:
Council parking profits soar by 15 per cent
09 January 2013 by IAM

Councils in England made over £411 million in parking charges last year (2011/12) - an increase of 14.9 per cent - according to research by the Institute of Advanced Motorists. In 2010/11 Councils made £358 million.

In 2009/10 councils made £322 million from parking charges making the three-year increase 27 per cent.
The top council earners in 2011/12, (with percentage increases based on the previous year) were:
Westminster (£38m) up 8.7 per cent
Kensington and Chelsea (£27.5m) up 31 per cent
Camden (£25m) up 18 per cent

Outside of London the biggest earners were:
Brighton and Hove (£13.7m) up 18.9 per cent
Milton Keynes (£6.5m) up 9.3 per cent
Newcastle upon Tyne (£6.2m) up 51 per cent

At the same time the amount spent by councils on road safety, education and safe routes to schools, decreased by 18 per cent, from £127.5m to £105m.

Overall revenue spending on highways and transport reduced by 6 per cent between 2010/11 and 2011/12, while capital expenditure (on construction, tarmac etc) reduced by an estimated 13%.
A Department for Communities and Local Government report from June 2012 estimates that capital expenditure on highways and transport will fall by a further 11% over 2012/133.

IAM chief executive Simon Best said: “Councils are making record-breaking profits from parking, while cutting road safety spending on life-saving services such as, education for young drivers, cycle training, and safe routes to schools schemes.
“At the same time cuts to road maintenance will mean a backlog of repairs which will simply cost more to fix in the long term.”

Notes to editors
Calculated using figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government (Revenue Outturn figures).
2010/11 - https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ty-data--5
2011/12 - https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ty-data--2

Regional figures are: Revenue from parking for councils in England by region

Region Parking revenue 2010/11 Parking revenue 2011/12 Percentage change

East of England 14,107,000 9,637,000 -31.686
East Midlands 13,221,000 14,774,000 11.7465
London 185,225,000 217,513,000 17.4318
North East 7,862,000 6,278,000 -20.148
North West -1,560,000 11,424,000 -832.31
South East 48,933,000 60,475,000 23.5874
South West 48,226,000 41,411,000 -14.131
West Midlands 20,681,000 19,796,000 -4.2793
Yorkshire and Humber 20,107,000 28,841,000 43.4376

Department for Communities and local Government ‘Local authority capital expenditure and receipts – England’ 2011-12 Provisional Outturn & 2012-13 Forecast https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/s ... 168766.pdf

The IAM is the UK’s largest independent road safety charity, dedicated to improving standards and safety in driving, motorcycling and cycling. The commercial division of the IAM operates through its occupational driver training company IAM Drive & Survive. The IAM has more than 200 local volunteer groups and over 100,000 members in the UK and Ireland. It is best known for the advanced driving test and the advanced driving, motorcycling and cycling courses. Its policy and research division offers advice and expertise on road safety.
Parking fees are getting totally out of hand. I agree a cost to maintain is required from Councils and perhaps 'by use' is necessary but are we not already paying in Council Tax charges for roads and maintenance ?
This increase in profits leaves road users less able to afford vehicle repairs and service. The motorists do not have never ending pockets ! Road Safety will be negatively influenced from this. I have been amazed at some charges it is incredible what some places charge !

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2013 12:44 
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Oh dear, don't these councils see that this is why the high streets are dying. Who wants to drive into town and pay a fortune to park for a couple of hours (if you can find a space) when you can just order on the Internet.

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2013 13:47 
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It's getting that it's as cheap ( and at times a lot cheaper ) to buy on the net . Parking charges are now equating to postal costs . Add this to small place high fuel prices . If I want something in a hurry,I'll usually find it in a retail park in Coventry with free parking . At the same time I fill the tank .Last trip fuel differential was approx 5-6 p /litre . Makes the trip at least free( on fuel grounds anyway).

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PostPosted: Mon Jan 21, 2013 14:24 
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I never once paid to park anywhere in California – not once! And before someone says it, yes I know it’s built around the car and car culture but that misses the point.

We pay through our taxes for parking already, just like we pay for our roads which never get maintained and the money is siphoned off for other things. Only in the U.K. working where I do, opposite a hospital, would you regularly see patients etc. in a high state of anxiety desperately trying to find change for parking and hobble back and forth. It’s a hospital FFS! Yet no one bats an eyelid over this matter :doh:

‘Only in the U.K.’ sounds like it could be the start of a new thread...

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 22, 2013 16:57 
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malcolmw wrote:
Oh dear, don't these councils see that this is why the high streets are dying. Who wants to drive into town and pay a fortune to park for a couple of hours (if you can find a space) when you can just order on the Internet.


Why would they worry over the state of the High Street - that is a businesses problem, not the councils! :headbash:
As long as they get an income to pay their pensions, and perhaps a little bit left over for a Christmas party, all well and good!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262508/Arts-chief-moaned-cuts-demands-12-500-taxpayers-leaving-party.html

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PostPosted: Tue Jan 29, 2013 15:07 
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Ernest Marsh wrote:
Why would they worry over the state of the High Street - that is a businesses problem, not the councils! :


Because when businesses go bust income from rates goes down.

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PostPosted: Sat Feb 02, 2013 17:38 
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My local council had the brainwave to increase the charge for using it's car parks from 60p for one hour to £1.20 for two hours. There is already the option to park for two hours at a charge of £1.20 but some bright spark thought by removing the option to park for one hour would increase footfall on the high streets!

It did not compute that many people (myself included) park for one hour, do their business, then leave - if that hour parking then becomes £1.20 people will go elsewhere, like the out of town supermarket where parking is free. Sometimes I wonder what these idiots are smoking... :x


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PostPosted: Sat Feb 02, 2013 18:49 
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Quote:
but some bright spark thought by removing the option to park for one hour would increase footfall on the high streets!

It did not compute that many people (myself included) park for one hour, do their business, then leave - if that hour parking then becomes £1.20 people will go elsewhere, like the out of town supermarket where parking is free. Sometimes I wonder what these idiots are smoking... :x



Right, let's look at this from a logical, non council, view.

People are encouraged to park for two hours, not one to increase footfall....

wrong, if you have 100 spaces that people parked for an hour for, you would have 200 cars using all those available spaces in 2 hours...with the same cars parked for two hours you have HALF the footfall...people aren't gonna buy twice as much in two hours that they could buy in one hour.

Unfortunately, Bob, to get a good job at the council you have to have a brain removal op at a very early age.

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PostPosted: Sat Feb 02, 2013 20:44 
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Similarly, locally ,when VAT went up, our lot upped charges by 20 p to £1 for an hour . Strangely enough ,the car parks emptied and those of Asda ( 2 hr free ANPR monitored) and Sainsbury ( 2hr @£1.5 ,refunded on purchases over £5) ,increased . But there's little mionitoringg in the supermarkets parks -possibly because none want to rock the boat and have their "deterrent" of penalty charges challenged . I've one back in to Asda more than once in a two hour period with out a word ,and the parking attendant at Sainsbury's seldom "tries something different"( like work ).

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PostPosted: Sat Feb 02, 2013 23:19 
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WhiskyBob wrote:
My local council had the brainwave to increase the charge for using it's car parks from 60p for one hour to £1.20 for two hours. There is already the option to park for two hours at a charge of £1.20 but some bright spark thought by removing the option to park for one hour would increase footfall on the high streets!

It did not compute that many people (myself included) park for one hour, do their business, then leave - if that hour parking then becomes £1.20 people will go elsewhere, like the out of town supermarket where parking is free. Sometimes I wonder what these idiots are smoking... :x

Absa£uckinloutely!

Morons, idiots, fools, overpaid managers, (empty suits). Who and how do these retards get to these positions of power/authority in this country!

Only in the U.K...

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PostPosted: Sun Feb 03, 2013 20:01 
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[quote="Big Tone"
Absa£uckinloutely!

Morons, idiots, fools, overpaid managers, (empty suits). Who and how do these retards get to these positions of power/authority in this country!

Only in the U.K...[/quote]

But who are suppossed to oversee the actions of this lot - yep ,our elected reps ,who at county level ( looking at the last round of limit cuts ,which a lot were said to oppose) are toothless , as are their local ward counterparts .

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PostPosted: Sun Feb 03, 2013 20:39 
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Actually, I should apologise for saying only in the U.K because there is an exception.

I have honestly lost count of the number of times, over very many years now, I’ve heard something on the news, a policy or law, that’s wrong and/or stupid followed by the words “but in Scotland” it’s different and better. (My words).

Two things I remember from T.V. news just off the top of my head are like the age of criminal responsibility being lower to an anti-gazumping law on buying a home. I wish I’d made a log of each time I'd heard it and what it was about, but it really comes down to everything that’s crap in England they seem to have got right or better in Scotland.

So I wouldn't be at all surprised if they have got this better or different too; or at least they will if it's wrong now! Maybe it's because the Scots wouldn't tolerate the same s :censored: t like us lie-down-and-die English wimps do.

I would seriously consider moving there if they get independence, and if they would welcome me as an English/Cornishman. Unfortunately, when I used to visit my great aunt in Ayr, there were things I noticed whereby they, (some), treated me as a second class citizen once they heard my voice. :(

That said I remember, (Andy off Mock The Week I think), saying everyone hates the English. Even the English hate the English. :D

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PostPosted: Sun Feb 03, 2013 21:08 
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Exception ,possibly because of the type of law and for a lot of years we ( in England)had a dodgy ex soliciter from the Scotish lowlands helping to make laws whrer laws already existed . Oh ,I won't say Scots are racist . When the world cup is on ,( as Scotland is not usually thnere), we support any team playing England :D .

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PostPosted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 00:19 
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Cheaper to park illegally than it is to use a car park?

Only in a council run by tree hugging cyclists...


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ridge.html


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PostPosted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 01:24 
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It's all got completely out of hand, and thrown up some crazy rules that no democracy should allow but we just seem to put up with it all.

Two examples:
In Richmond the council fee for on street parking permits are based not on a vehicles physical size but it emissions. So a permit for your VW Polo could cost more than the one for the neighbours Lexus 4x4 Hybrid. And, as a friend discovered, once your car is due for its first Mot your car gets bumped up into the next emission bracket. The council assumes your 'old' car will not be as efficient. Said mate challenged this at the Council parking shop - his VW was still within manufactures tolerances as shown on his Mot print out. Suffice to say all he got was 'them's the rules'. Oh and though his road is two miles from Twickenham rugby stadium his permit isn't valid on match/concert days - he has to pay extra on each occasion. And he got a ticket for having no permit, with a picture of his car with the permit in plain view. Then half the street got tickets when it snowed and the attendant wouldn't brush snow off the cars - rules say permits must be on display :doh:

In another London suburb a small time property developer bought a property being sold by the council at auction. The sale stipulated that the purchaser couldn't live in the property themselves but must sell it on. This caveat was ensured the council got all the money, if the purchaser had moved in the council would have to give 3/4 of the cash to the Treasury. The property need complete renovation, so parking would be handy. But no. It was a permit parking road and as the owner wasn't paying Council Tax (as he didn't and couldn't live there) he couldn't have a permit. He appealed pointing out what to the cogent amongst us would see as the bloomin' obvious but to no avail.

You have to love a country where we let people with the mentality of car park attendants in charge of, not least, car parking. :headbash:

Chris

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PostPosted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 08:26 
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Unfortunately, too many council officials don't have the mental capacity to think outside the rule book and realise that in the real world, their petty rules won't work (as is obvious in most of the examples you give). Councils need a thorough shake up with rules being made by a central body of people with common sense and real world experience. Most of these people leave school, join the council and don't realise their is a world out there behind their padded cell /office where people have to live and work in a normal world.

I believe the rot started back in the early nineties when they started reinventing jobs with fancy job titles for idiots and calling themselves "officers", which gave them the jumped up impression that their petty jobs were suddenly important and they had some strange misguided authority and power over everyone in society instead of just being able to order the tea lady about (quietly so she couldn't hear them).
These jumped up little hitler wannabes need to realise that they are working FOR the public and being paid by the public for the good of making public life run better and easier, no to fulfil their own jumped up egos because they are hen pecked at home and bossing Joe public about is their only way of venting their impotence frustrations.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.


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PostPosted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 13:57 
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Barkstar wrote:
...And, as a friend discovered, once your car is due for its first Mot your car gets bumped up into the next emission bracket. The council assumes your 'old' car will not be as efficient. Said mate challenged this at the Council parking shop - his VW was still within manufactures tolerances as shown on his Mot print out.
Chris


In fairness, this has nothing to do with the MOT emissions test. It's about CO2 emissions (which aren't measured at MOT). I could believe that CO2 emissions performance will deteriorate with mileage, but I'd be surprised it it could go up enough to change emissions band - even over the life of the car (assuming reasonable maintenance and no modifications).


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PostPosted: Fri Jun 14, 2013 14:18 
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On town centres and parking, the councils should make extensive free parking available to encourage people to visit (like the out-of-town centres do). They can thus do away with most wardens leaving only those required to police improper on-street parking causing obstructions. They would also have no costs for emptying machines of cash.

They recoup their lost revenue by increasing local business rates (but this would need a change in the law to allow local tax to be levied). Although at first glance this would just make retailers raise their prices to cover this cost, it would actually be overall positive for town centre shops as the huge increase in footfall and sales would eaily cover it. BTW, the extra local tax would also apply to charity shops as they would also benefit from the increased trade.

There is no need for Mary Portas type initiatives. Just do the above and regeneration will occur by commercial processes.

Of course, this will never happen as most councils are obsessed with restricting cars to promote their green agenda.

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 18, 2013 02:14 
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Malcolm I totally agree on all your points.
I have visited many busy towns where there are either no parking charges or extremely small charges - like 20p for 2 hrs.

Why we have parking charges at all has to be pure greed. If there are not enough parking spaces for those who wish to use public transport then that needs to be resolved properly.
I guess it always boils down to pushing the problems away, than actually resolve them ?

I warming thought but i have met several Councillors who are sensible and try really hard to get good and sensible policies activated but can be trumped by others who squash their aims. It is tough... we must vote when we can and try and help those who do try to do the right thing!

Much of all of this comes under (the current favourite phrase of) 'social engineering' and the other, 'traffic management' .... both will eventually do what they really want anyway, so attempts at changes are temporary ... although perhaps repeats of their 'medicine' might then re-work on the following new generations ...!

Perhaps like good clear writing, we now need 'good & common sense community rules' ... ?

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 18, 2013 11:20 
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The justification of town centre parking fees can be blamed on lax planning laws decades ago.

Councils were, initially, forced to introduce some sort of control is because in the sixties and seventies every town got one or more high rise office blocks that had little or no parking. Most of the staff got to those offices on public transport. Then car use increased and the roads filled up all day. Shop owners complained that customers couldn't park, so councils started restricting on street parking and building car parks. Then these filled up and so on....

And that's why I don't think Malcolm's idea wouldn't work in practice - unless the time you could park up was controlled, which is where we came in. As with most things in life for every one of us with common sense there's someone out there who because of either stupidity or selfishness won't apply such sense.

In the 30 years I've been driving my local council's parking restrictions have crept ever outwards - with the inevitable results for retailers. I live a mile from the town centre and we do now get folk parking up and walking into the centre to work - we're the nearest streets without restrictions. My street was asked if we wanted permit parking. I said no, even though I have my own off street parking, because I'd still have to buy permits for visitors and tradesmen. Luckily it was rejected - this year the council have doubled the cost of the permit.

I do think that back in the day that council's actually did see parking control as a way of ensuring retailers got trade and roads didn't get clogged. But it didn't take them long to realise they's created a cash cow - which they are now milking for all its worth.

Chris

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