To think parking charges kill city centres?

[shakingstevensfan]

We had a nice day out today and on the way home decided to stop in the city centre and get a cheap meal. We parked the car and went to pay, but the price of parking was £2.40 an hour - this applied up till 10 pm. This meant the minimum we would spend on parking was £4.80, but could easily be £7.20.
If I had been going for an expensive meal that would be fine. But the city centre is full of fairly cheap chain restaurants that are nothing special. So we got back in the car and drove instead to a retail park where we went to the exact same place we had planned to go, but with free parking.
It just amazes me that councils know city centres are dying but they still put people off actually using them.
We have not been in the city centre for a year and won't go back again unless it is for something special.

@Serpenta

No.

I wish UK cities were pedestrianised with even fewer cars around. Ban (most) vehicles, unclog the streets, and make public transport into the city centres free.

All pedestrianised areas do is keep the disabled out. Not that there's much point anyway - even when you can get in the shops access is pisspoor.

As you say the city is full of cheap places, still in business, then the footfall is fine.

Yes, you're feeling priced out, but the actual business district is getting enough trade.

I totally agree and I do exactly the same. I also don’t believe they charge to stop people travelling in, it’s purely to earn money.

I hate it when people keep saying ban cars in city centres. I am a wheelchair user , public transport is incredibly difficult. I need to use the car.

Same here OP

As a result, as a local, I never go into our historic town centre anymore

Instead tourists are bussed in for the day

People who want to spend a whole day go to P&R

As a local, if I just want to buy a few things , maybe have lunch, then go home it makes no sense driving to the P&R, waiting 15 mins for bus, sitting 15 mins on bus, and then all again on way back. OR pay £2.40 per hour

No thanks

I stopped going into town for casual shop &lunch a few years ago

And I do not miss it actually

@LadyWithLapdog

I disagree. £2.40 an hour isn’t much. Do your business and move on. Or factor it into the cost of a day out. I only want Sh the parking costs would be used for the public good and not go into the pocket of whoever won the contract (usually someone living abroad who pays no tax).

It's not much - many places charge 2-3 times that amount though. You can easily end up spending £20 or more to park in some city centres.

Parking charges don't stop people driving, it just steers them towards newer retail developments and malls that have their own carparks (exactly what you did). Those places often don't want to rent to a new or small business, so in the end you get the same ugly shopping centres with the same big chains and franchises everywhere. There are really only a handful of places large enough to generate enough foot traffic to sustain a business centre without free parking.

THIS.

In my town, the council are sufficiently desperate to get people in that parking is plentiful and cheap. There is an ugly retail park on the ouskirts and Tbf the parking cost there is the same. It’s convenient but I’d prefer to see proper public transport and cycling/walking infrastructure to encourage people in, not car parking

@NoSquirrels

Ellpellwood Bath park and ride is free, though?

Do you not have to pay on the bus anymore?

I used the newbridge one years ago and always remember having to pay.

In bigger cities there should be decent enough public transport systems to not have b to drive in. I never drive in to our city, I get the tram/bus/train. I actually think cars kill city centres. Hopefully post pandemic areas will be a lot more pedestrianised as well.

Also can't stand out of town retail parks, they kill city centres and cheap chain restaurants are pretty grim too. Much prefer a decent independent she luckily we have loads. I do also understand people are very attached to their cars and can't conceptualise the thought of getting public transport, I have friends like this, it's frustrating.
Car park spaces and roads need to be free for buses, taxes, delivery drivers and blue badge drivers.

As a local, if I just want to buy a few things , maybe have lunch, then go home it makes no sense driving to the P&R, waiting 15 mins for bus, sitting 15 mins on bus, and then all again on way back. OR pay £2.40 per hour

So you keep your corner shop and nearest pub in business?

Our council have done a study and concluded that not many people are using the park and ride.

So they are making it bigger, from 650 spaces to 2,650!
I really don't understand that.
And when it's bigger they are going to build a restaurant and gym.
So it's no longer a park and ride, but an out of town leisure area.

Where I live the park and ride is 2.50 return per adult. So same as four hours of parking and takes twice as long plus have to wait for a bus. They could charge per car to encourage people to use it. Also the OP was talking about going out for a meal, I presumed in the evening so when we are down to one bus an hour

I agree OP. We usually go to out of town shopping centres and restaurants for this reason, not just the cost but the ease, and I recognise there are less independents out of town. Public transport is laughable where I am, despite being a big town.

@MoppaSprings you're correct, it's not free. It's about £3.50. Plus petrol.

Fair enough, ellpell!

Like I say - joined up thinking is needed. Local councils need the parking cash. Rent raises on high street shops are prohibitive. They’re shafted by government decisions. Smart options - P&R, better cycle lanes or pedestrianised areas, disabled parking close to centres, ‘experience’ shopping and eating and culture you can’t get at big box out of town venues - this would all help.

I think cities are more likely to have park and rides. My local town is a small market town. It doesnt have a park and ride. There is a train line but since the towns station is my closest station i cant get the train in. There are very irregular expensive buses.
So yes we do tend to drive to another towns retail park over our own town. Or order from amazon.

I’m not sure it is putting people off at the moment though. I drove into the city centre on Saturday morning and there were so many people that it took almost an hour to get to the central shopping centre (would be a 20 minute drive normally), the huge car park was almost full, and every restaurant seemed to be fully booked up.

I live in a tourist town and the parking is so expensive. I would love to use the bus but they’re every 2 hours, start at 8am and finish at 5pm and don’t run on Sundays. No one can use them for working and I couldn’t use them when my children were at school as I would only have an hour in town to guarantee getting back in time. So I go to another town with free parking or retail centre. Also a return is £6 each adult (over 12’s) so for 5 of us it’s £27!

Councils have little or no means of discretionary income other than parking charges and to an extent parking penalty charges.

Iirc, councils are only supposed to cover the costs of the car parks; they are not supposed to make a profit - even though we suspect they do! DH asked for the figures here under FOI; and the council refused to give him them, citing confidentiality of commercial contracts.

I live in a seaside town where parking is £24+ a day, however local council have introduced a resident permit for £8 a month, you can park in any carpark or roadside pay and display bay for up to three hours for free, it's actually worked out very well for us, if we're going to the beach for the day we usually walk but if I'm popping into town to shop or we're just going to the aquarium or soft play for a couple of hours it's great. If you're going to stay longer you can top it up on the app so after 3 hours you can pay for more time or you can move on to a different carpark/Street parking. It's really good in the wet weather too when ever not been walking to places as much. It's registered to our house and both of our cars. It might be the most sensible thing our council has ever done.

Just to clarify, I am not asking for free parking, just cheaper parking. I am willing to pay for car parking in the city centre.
Our public transport is fairly decent. It takes about half an hour from my house to the city centre. We used to go in by bus all the time. But we used to go in and have a "day out" in the centre. Go shopping and get a meal. Those days are long gone. I shop mainly online or at the supermarket. I am not spending an hour round trip to go to a chain restaurant with my family.
And yes we could park further out and walk. I know that is what our Council Leaders urges car drivers to do. We are not going to. My DP has issues with mobility, but nowhere bad enough to get a blue badge. He can walk for 20 minutes, but it causes pain. He does it when we are places with the family. But we have choices. We can go elsewhere. There is nothing special about the city centre.
We were driving through the city centre on the way home as it is the quickest route and thought about stopping somewhere to eat as it was the easiest option. If we had to pay £1 or £1.50 an hour we would have done so as this was the convenient option. But it was too much, so we drove elsewhere.

Its not just cities. Its towns too.

An example is Altrincham. Not only did the Trafford Centre (with free parking) suck the big name chains away, but people were put off from going because of the parking charges.

It also affected other nearby towns such as Warrington.

One of the key things about getting Altrincham back on its feet has been to try and reduce parking charges by the council. The influx of independent shops and the market are talked about a lot but parking is also key to the revival.

What is also interesting is Altrincham Tesco went through a period of trialling reducing the time you could park there to 90mins (its right by the town centre). It obviously didn't go too well and before too long it had increased to 3hrs. Obviously lots of people were going to Tesco and then walking into town because of the parking.

The Trafford Centre, Cheshire Oaks and most out of town shopping estates owe their sucess to free parking. Why would people go into town if they could park out of town for free?

These are places which aren't served well by public transport. If you want to get somewhere easily you have to drive. For a family, the bus is far more expensive.

For cities which do have public transport the key is cheap public transport being an option to reduce traffic rather than price people out.

I don't think this is new or a surprise.

I think P&R works well if it's well planned. I've used the Oxford one since the 1970's, I think it was one of the first cities to have one. There are 5 parks around the ring road with regular buses plus another one a few miles away at Bicester, it is well used and works well. The city centre parking has always put me off driving in. The city centre has few cars, and is mainly full of pedestrians, buses and many cycles, other places I have been don't seem to work as well.

Lots of towns and cities are dead on their feet after the last two years. Lots of towns and cities don't have enough people living in them to sustain all of the retail and services within it. It's not great to be putting further barriers in the way for people coming in to the area to spend their money.

The retail parks in my area are packed to the gunnels while the town wastes away. Was the the environmental solution people were looking for?

The cost of parking doesn’t put me off but the hassle does, some of our council car parks only take coins. No app, contactless or card payments and there are no residents permits. Pay and display on most rather than pay on exit.

It’s like parking in 1992.