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.

I agree, it cost me £18 to park in mine recently. It was a really strange stressful experience too with a pram with restrictions.
If we got the train in it would cost £14 for 2 return tickets. And theyre usually packed and rarely have pram space spare. Park and ride is cheap, but again also packed and I didn't want the stress of fighting for a space for the pram with an overtired toddler. I won't be going back in again unless I had to.

I agree OP.

£2.40 an hour quite reasonable for around here, all that to walk around bargin stores and charity shops. I used to park in a residential street and walk but they've made that all permit parking now. The town centre is dying but the retails parks are busy. The 2hr free bays have disappeared in the Old Town area too and the few that remain are only for 1hr so don't encourage you to shop, eat lunch etc.

The bus stop is close to my house but it takes 45mins, rather then 10mins by car and it's £3 each way just for me. It stops at 8pm and is every 30mins. I've had to take it to the station when my car was getting serviced- bus didn't turn up and I missed my train. I was at the stop 10mins early too.

We also have a traffic free cycle route pretty much from outside our door to the town/Station but how am I supposed to carry say a saucepan set home? What about when it rains?

I really dont think you are going to get people away from their cars. Pollution a big problem where I live. The answer is greener cars.

I'm disabled (and used to be in a wheelchair), disabled parking was charged at the same rate -£2:40 per hour. So I haven't been to my local town for 5 years, I drive the extra 10 minutes to go to Bluewater about once a month and merrily spend my money there in the shops and restaurants.
Public transport is an absolute joke and all the suggestions to just use it instead of a car are ridiculous. I like my car, I like driving and don't want to have to face a million and one other people who shove past me as I have very impaired mobility and also trying to keep a hold of a 3 year old.

We had no bus service for years in my area because it wasn't cost effective as apparently "no one" used it however it was always rammed on my estate by the elderly who had no other way of leaving the estate they were left for years without a service and now they have decided to bring back a version of it they are all using dial a ride or taxi share with a mate our local buses regularly break down we are quite famous locally for this

Our town centre has just been un-pedestrianised and the shops are being turned into housing except the ones owned by overseas investors they are being left to rot with huge rents which won't attract anyone

They are looking to drive people towards using public transport and reducing traffic congestion in city centres. I do agree though, that the footfall is needed to keep high streets alive (and some are barely clinging by a thread!)

I’m ok with paying for parking if a) the rates are reasonable and b) the car parks are clean, safe and well maintained

At my local one you can park for 3 hours free on a Sunday. On other days you can park for an hour for £1. I think for a full day it’s something like £7.60 but I think that’s more to deter rail commuters from using it and taking up the spaces for shoppers.

There is a big difference between a good and bad car park too. I think about Westfield in London or Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth. Clean, modern, easy payment, large spaces, well lit and safe, easy access to the shopping areas. I compare that to some of the concrete monstrosities from the 60s still in operation (I’m thinking Birmingham city centre) stink of urine, bollards obstructing spaces or making parking difficult, don’t feel safe, lifts out of order, dingy unsafe feeling stairwells.

I’m more than happy to pay for parking if the experience is the former rather than the latter!!!

It costs more to go on the bus than to park in the centre in my city.

I am not getting on park and ride with my family at the end of a day out to go to a chain restaurant. I know they are well used here by people who work in the city centre.
Council leaders can lecture people all they want on what people should do, but we have choices.

It's not just parking charges, it's the general state of some city centres. That's not the government's or councils fault. It's businesses who don't take pride in their surroundings.

Expansion of supermarkets. Out of town retail development. Even the big shopping centres. I remember my local city centre pre the shopping centre and it was a different place.

Car ownership/decline in public transport.

Freezers. How many people had a big chest freezer in the 70's?

Also, now both parents tend to work full time.

The internet.

So many changes and a complete lack of change from quite a lot of retailers.

It's not as simple as free parking.

No, I wouldn't fancy going to a park and ride, waiting for a bus, travel in to town, have a meal, wait for another bus, travel back to the car, with all my kids at the end of the day just to have a meal to save the hassle of making one when we get home.

I live in the suburbs of a major city. We have a few park and ride stations here, all significantly further from us than the city centre and no cheaper than the normal bus service, which costs more than the very expensive parking if we go as a family. Due to current restrictions, public transport and the park and ride busses are running at a significantly reduced capacity so actually getting on is problematic.

We’re lucky here that we have a couple of universities in the city with student accommodation within walking distance of the city, so it tends to be quite busy. When the students leave for the summer, it’s like a ghost town.

YANBU. My local (fairly small) town is presently in consultation to remove 90% of the parking within the town centre to drive increased use of public transport. It will destroy what's left of the town and force everyone out to the out of town retail parks and shopping centres.

There's the whole "Oh but there'll be disabled spaces" caveat, without two thoughts for the thousands of people out there who are disabled and have mobility issues, but who essentially aren't so disabled that they qualify for a blue badge - which incidentally seems to have different criteria depending on the tide, the season and whether Mars is in retrograde if you don't already qualify for a disability related benefit.

We used to have loads of free parking. Town was busy every weekend. Then companies said it was filled with city workers parking their cars all day, so they started offering 3 hours free parking. These employees simply changed parking spots at lunch times. This annoyed the businesses, so they started charging hourly fees. Hardly anyone used to shop there since fees applied, preferring to go to the next (posh) town because it has better shops/restaurants. Shops should have just introduced validated parking instead.

Parking charges definitely play a part in planning our activities. We don’t go out of our way to avoid them all the time, but we would choose the shops on the retail park outskirts where we can. If we do go into town and have to pay parking then we will do a lot of things at the same time - eat out in town, cinema trip etc.

@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).

This is council on-street parking, so no contracts. I think you misunderstand though. I do not know anyone who has a day out in the city centre anymore. Those days have long gone. There used to be free parking spaces in a few places in the city centre for 30 minutes. We used to use them if we were just popping in for one thing say one book. When they took that away we stopped doing that and only went to the city centre if we were going to go to lots of shops.

Then as the city centre shops got poorer and had less stock anyway, we started shopping more online. DP especially got fed up of going into clothing shops and being advised they did not have his size and to order online. So we no longer shop in the city centre at all. It is years since I did a proper full day of shopping.

But we still nipped in to go to a nice bar or to a restaurant. It is a small city centre so is physically convenient for this. At first parking was free in the evenings. Then free after 8pm. Now the charges are until 10 pm. And the cost keeps going up.

The city centre is becoming a place that only poorer people go. Those without access to a car who have to use public transport. And with the loss of big chains like Debenhams it is going to really struggle. We have choices about where we go. The cheaper independent restaurants are not in the city centre. The convenient chain shops and restaurants are on retail parks or suburbs. Why would we bother going into the city centre at all?

Where I am, pedestriansation killed the high street. There’s load of car parks and people generally paid them, it used to be heaving. It was made into a pedestrian zone and now it’s dead, loads of shops have left and Covid has meant they haven’t really been replaced.

This isn’t without precedent - they’d tried this here before in the 90s and found it didn’t work then either - but the council seem determined to make it work. It doesn’t, really - most people seem to drive to a nearby town instead of walking to ours now, and the high street is generally full of teens hanging round McDonald’s and a few families wondering the gardens, there’s generally few shoppers now.

@TakeYourFinalPosition it is because they make plans based on how they think people should behave, rather than how they actually behave.

The city centre is becoming a place that only poorer people go. Those without access to a car who have to use public transport.
The other way to look at this is that if there was good, cheap public transport into city centres, more people would use it. I don't have a car but I'm not poor ; I just would rather not have a car. I do live in London, where I have a thriving local high street that I walk to and around, and obviously great public transport into the centre and other parts of town.

The cheaper independent restaurants are not in the city centre. The convenient chain shops and restaurants are on retail parks or suburbs.
This wouldn't be the case if city centres were served with good public transport.

Retail parks are soul-destroying, often use valuable green- or brownfield space and are alienating to those of us without cars (I think they act against poorer people who can't afford to run a car).

A vibrant city or town centre is a valuable and beautiful thing and if it were up to me they'd all have great free or cheap public transport. Decent shops –a range, from expensive boutiques to cheap chains –would all be able to flourish. There'd be more incentive to keep up the appearance and utility of city and town parks and other outside space. Our towns and cities would be much more attractive.

How much would it cost a family of 4 to get into town and back by car where you live OP? I bet it would be about £7 or £8. So why should the priority be providing cheap car parking?

You said 'we' so at least two of you. Where I live (not London) you couldn't get two return public transport tickets into the city for what you paid for parking. There are car parks which cost more than that in our city centre, but also some which are £5 a day if you know where to look and are prepared to walk a bit.

Our town is already dead. There is nothing that would make me go there, as there isn’t anything I can’t get from somewhere else. Debenhams closed a couple of weeks ago and so now there are no ‘big shops’. It’s full of people on spice and doesn’t feel that safe. There’s one decent independent restaurant to eat at but it’s not worth the journey and the car parking just for that. The only reason I go now is for medical appointments and DH drives me, then either uses the 20 minute spaces at the station and I walk down or drives around then collects me when I phone him.

The Trafford Centre is about 20-30 minutes drive from me; to use public transport I’d have to take 2 buses taking well over an hour. I can also call in on my way home from work, where I also have to drive to as I work shifts and there is no public transport to get me there/back. I live about 5 minutes walk from a train station; one train an hour, last one at 7pm, no service on Sundays.

When I lived in the SE I didn’t drive as I didn’t need to; on the outskirts of London, public transport is great. Here, going to places that aren’t that far apart distance-wise can take so much longer as there is often no direct route. When I was little, my dad would drive us (2 adults, 2 DC) to my nan’s every Friday. She only lived about 4 miles away so about a 15 minute drive, would have been 2 buses and more expensive than the car.

One of my friends lives near to Cambridge and once used the park and ride to go shopping near Christmas. It’s expensive; I think you have to pay for both the parking and the bus, the drivers barely ever have change for a note and then one berated her for “having so much stuff” when she got back on in the city centre!

@IntermittentParps we do have fairly decent public transport. But the city centre rents are too high for independent restaurants unless they are very high-end. So they have never been in the city centre. We do have some lovely independent cages in the city centre. But I am not getting a bus in to go for a coffee and a cake.

@BarbarianMum it costs £5 at a weekend for a family bus ticket into the city centre and back. So it is cheaper than parking. And if we still went into the city centre for days out I would do that. As I said I do not know anyone who goes into the city centre for a day out or even to do lots of shopping. We buy online and normally go to independent restaurants outside the city centre or a local pub.

And outside London, only those who are poor or can't drive tend not to have a car. It is different in London. When I lived there I did not have a car. But where I am now, although public transport to the city centre is very good, elsewhere it is very poor. I do not think we have gone to the attraction we did yesterday unless we went on an organised coach trip. Our life would be a lot poorer without a car. So we will always have a car.

I'm currently on the into my local city, takes me right into the centre, don't need to bother about parking and it's £4.30 for a day rider, which I'll use again this evening as I'm meeting friends. The council are pedestrianising much of the city and I think it's great!

shakingstevensfan, yes, commercial rent prices are shocking. If they were a little lower, a better range of businesses could afford them, which would make city centres more appealing.

I personally would get a bus to go for coffee and cake but maybe it's different in London; there are so many nice areas that make it feel worth it to get a bus or tube somewhere. Granted, I'd probably do a little more than coffee and cake – go to a park and/or potter about the high street, to a little art gallery etc. Again, though, arguably if there were more and a better range of shops and galleries etc in other cities and towns, more people would be willing to get public transport and make a trip of it.

The bus from where I live runs once an hour and takes an hour to get there. The train station is nowhere near the town centre in any case they closed most of the local stations. There is no park and ride.

The town centre is dead. Debenhams has gone and M & S is closing in the next few weeks. You can't park outside the city centre as it's all residents only permit parking.