Safe Speed Forums

The issue of parking charges has recently been discussed here:

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=12823

The question is, how much you would be prepared to pay for five hours' parking in a major town (e.g. Cheltenham, Reading, Preston, Darlington), but one which was not a major city (Manchester, Birmingham) or a tourist honeypot (Bath, York)

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

I voted £3, but I was a bit torn between that and the "objection" category.

My nearest town, Inverness, has some "pay and display" roadside parking bays still. Maximum stay is 1 hour and costs £1. I approve of this system because it supports effecient use by those of us that need to make a quick visit and then move on somewhere else.

Using the alternative multistory car park has an "arrive and leave" overhead of at least 20 minutes (queuing to enter, finding space, parking, walking to where you wanted to go and the same in reverse). Such overhead is unacceptable for a five minute visit to a shop if you could have parked outside.

I can't remember the charges for the multi-story car park because I usually go to an out of town retail park instead, where parking is free. I guess that tells a story in its own right. I'd say time and convenience were bigger influences than the parking charges themselves.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I voted for £3 as well.

I think many people do their best to avoid going anywhere they need to pay for parking.

However, even the most committed free-marketeer would accept that land in town and city centres has a scarcity value and its owners are entitled to charge the market rate for people to park there.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

Three quid!

I voted two but in reality I wouldn't stay in a town centre that long.

I was quite disgusted to find Halifax had put the charges up to 50p an hour in the carpark I usually use. (havn't used it for at least a year, was 30p).

But then us Yorkshire folk are known for being thrifty.

I don't mind paying a token fee for parking, just to keep a few spaces free in the carparks otherwise they fill up with workers staying all day. But if I have to pay a whole pound for a quick run round the shops (bloke style shopping ) then I'm likely to move on elsewhere.

The Cheapest around my way Is 30p for 2 hours (Not much to stay for though) Usually 20 minutes and I'm done. Not much choice other wise. Limited free on street parking or risk getting a ticket down a side street.

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RoADA Member -GOLD 2008
If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.

I generally try to avoid paying for parking, which normally means parking slightly outside the town centre. However, if there was a conveniently located car park, I suppose I wouldn't mind paying for parking - but not more than £2 for 5 hours! (I'm a bit of a cheapskate I suppose.)

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-mike[F]
Caught in the rush of the crowd, lost in a wall of sound..

The problem with these sort of charges is one of demand and supply - more cars than spaces.

If the car park operators put up their prices by 10p per hour and incur no dropoff in the number of and duration of cars using their spaces then they will happily do the same again once the last increase has been forgotten.

In addition there is the problem of good old human laziness. I know of many (able-bodied) people who will pay an extra 20-30p an hour to park a matter of quarter of a mile closer to town centre. This allows parking fees in town centres to be driven even further.

I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying it's reality (at present). In my opinion, the supply of car park spaces should be increased to allow market forces to drive the price of parking down and encourage increased commerce in the town centre - the lifeblood of most major cities - although I suspect this may be a pipe dream.


Dave

My rip off point depends more on the town centre. £5 for the centre of Manchester for 5 hours is just on the edge of being reasonable. £5 for a miniscule market town with 3 shops, 15 pubs, 12 estate agents and funeral directors would be a rip off.

I'm definitely turning towards the objecting to parking charges now as I do most shopping on the internet or in supermarkets/out of town shopping centres. No wonder town centres are dead... although both congleton and sandbach, which aren't too far away, have free town centre parking. They're thriving. A decent park and ride is also worth extra as it avoids you having to drive in very congested and often confusing town centres. Bristol's park and ride is £2 for all day parking and a return bus trip into town. Bargain.

The next town on from me had a Multi storey 700 space car park Until A major Store went & built onto most of It. I wonder how many 80p's that cost them to do that? Now where are those cars going go with all those lost spaces?

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RoADA Member -GOLD 2008
If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.

I avoid town centres at all cost.

Why should i pay to park in a Multi storey, and then have to walk to the shops

when i can just go to a retail park, park directley outside the shop, and pay nothing.

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Steve

You could quite easily spend over a tenner parking for 5 hours in Cambridge - park and ride schemes on the other hand actually work well there, for some reason - they even remembered to put lots of different sites covering most of the approaches to the city! It is £1.20 though...

I work on the old principle in that if a shop wants my custom it'l provide parking, so i tend to use either supermarkets or retail parks and pay nothing .Notice a lot of towns now setting up free car parks.

I can see that this is something I have been applying, without realising, for some time. My local town has increased parking charges year on year in an attempt to reduce traffic and increase use of public transport. The result is the dying of small suppliers whilst out of town superstores are taking all the business (though the goal of reduced traffic but without the goal of increased public transport use).

Now we have taken the decision to buy more from small suppliers but this is difficult because they do not exist in the numbers they did and the remainder are even more expensive than the supermarkets because of the price of parking.

So it seems I am part of the problem, but the root problem seems to be the anti-car policies of local governments.

Cheers

Paul

I voted for avoiding parking charges as I believe there's often no need to pay them - well for me at least anyway. In the unlikely event that I do get dragged around the shops for 5 hours by the girlfriend then we will go to the Trafford Centre. If on the other hand I'm doing a typical man's shop of dash-in-dash out and drive away again then I will either use the typical free 40mins-1hour bays that you get in a lot of towns, or use the supermarket as you can get nearly everything there, or a smaller retail park. If I really have to use our town centre for more the 40 mins then I will park on the local cinema or supermarket. This has two other benefits in my opinion, 1 is that they are on the approach to town centres avoiding traffic, and secondly it's a nice bit of excersise!

Talking of excersise I will refuse point blank to any requests from passengers to use the McDonalds drive-thru'! I will make them get out and go to the counter, and the same applies to myself. No wonder we're a nation of fat-so's! I haven't come accross the occasion where only the drive-thru is open - not sure if I can really go through with my plan of making them walk round to the hatch pretending to be a car! Shamefully I have actually done that with a few friends when very drunk.

I voted for no charge on the grounds that even £1 a day is over the top.
The reason being that it would actually pay me to tear my house down, level the ground and charge people £1 a day to park there.

Cheers
Peter

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Only when ideology, prejudice and dogma are set aside does the truth emerge - Kepler

Thers one multi-storey where you pay a good 20p per hour over the odds, but it is in the top ten safest places in the world, Top Gear tried to get a car out, using a professional car stealer, he failed miserably

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

Another reason i forgot to mention is that with the local car parks you risk dents etc with no redress.High time parks were held responsible for damage - like slipping on a shop floor.