| Ham and High article about St Johns Wood and Maida Vale "The high numbers of parking wardens and the introduction of pay-by-phone parking are also being blamed for killing off high street shopping. They installed a new parking system and when they first introduced it there were teething problems which customers got angry about. They sent down too many traffic wardens and now we've got the CCTV on top of that. So all these things are against us." Parking fees as demand management has a certain amount of sense in some circumstances. For instance, short term parking filled with long term commuting vehicles can be a real problem. As can the increase in congestion where private transport is too competitive against public transport. But the problem is that councils are now addicted to the income from fees and PCNs generated by over use of parking restrictions. However, even Westminster recognises this and has introduced schemes such as cheap parking in the west end tied to theatre tickets to try and support just one sector of their business rate payers. What we're asking for is not just a concession or continuation of a traditionally free service, but active encouragement of a transport solution that gets people off public transport without increasing congestion; That encourages people to come into Westminster and spend money on shops, entertainment and services; That supports business rate payers by supporting their employees. There is no need to use demand management to reduce demand because that demand doesn't cause a problem. Westminster could make parking free and double the size of all their M/C bays and it still wouldn't cause any congestion or road curb space problems. Another thought. WCC crows about the increase in spaces available. Nobody is saying anything about the reduction in spaces available over the years leading up to 2007. For instance Northumberland Ave used to have a large M/C bay down the whole of the centre of the road. This disappeared a couple of years ago with no replacement in the surrounding area. Is it just my imagination or is there much less space available in WCC compared with 10 or 20 years ago? The Westminster Lib Dems are more or less on side as well. http://westminsterlibdems.org.uk/news/000146/find_it_hard_to_park_now_we_know_why.html It seems Westminster are selling more car resident permits than there are car resident spaces. Which makes me wonder. How does the number of M/C permits sold compare with the number of spaces available? Especially when allowing for wholesale closures like Soho Sq. Westminster M/C Parking Demo - Mar 31 |
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[ 29-Mar-09 9:10am ] [ Politics
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