To think Free Parking is the answer to revive our town centres?

[Jumell]

I’ve been thinking a bit about this lately.

Whenever I thought about going to the city centre where I used to live, to shop/browse etc - the main thing that would stop me going was the thought of paying for parking - I’d just think - ‘nah’ - and not bother going in.

i think that if the Govt took the initiative to scrap all charges from car parking companies - NCP/Councils etc etc in town centres / high streets - it would massively revive these shopping centres that we all knew and loved?

No. It's a very simplistic solution that businesses consistently lobby for without considering the wider policy landscape.

Cheaper/free buses - not a solution but a better step in the right direction.

Do the public hold shopping centres in high levels of affection??

I said Same old tires chain shops because independents can't afford a physical shop
(tires should have read tired)
CAN'T .
So what point are you attempting to make?

My local large town is doing just that.

The council have invested a lot into rebuilding the town centre, and there is a large social space used for food festivals, continental markets, music events, and this weekend a Christmas market. It seems to be bucking the trend.

What local council funds? The ones supporting the elderly and vulnerable adults? The ones supporting looked after children? Perhaps we should scrap bin collections? Stop filling the potholes?

There are no spare "local council funds".

I parked at a meter yesterday to do some shopping, just outside the city centre. £5.40 per hour!

Yes I'm sending my local one a Xmas card with the family round robin in, to let it know I care 😂

@DuesToTheDirt that's a lot 😬
It really does seem to vary so much.

Better more regular public transport would be better in my opinion.

It's cheaper to get a taxi there and back tha pay for 2 to 3 hours parking where I live

How can people get into town to socialise if they cannot afford to park?

A town nr to me recently took away 60mins free parking, within weeks a major store closed down, footfall fell through the floor, the place was like a ghost town, council re-installed free parking, the store hasn't re opened, thought it might in the future but the shops that are left can now survive.

The towns i visit in Europe all seem to be doing ok and parking is either free or a euro per hour ie v cheap.

Town centres have had their day. The land could be better used for housing and some provisions for socialising and perhaps a supermarket. Get rid of all the scruffy money laundering places as well.

Most town centres aren't fit for purpose and are full of druggies and troublemakers. I visited my old town centre the other week and the only useful shops were an opticians, a bank and a couple of hot food outlets. It also has a supermarket. Everything else (charity, card, phone, vape shops and boarded up pubs) could easily be done away with and repurposed into apartments.

@LigamentBandy to be honest the yellow rain buckets that live in Croydon shopping centre have become popular local residents 😂

Would work in some places and be disastrous in others.

many towns and cities need less cars

why don't you walk to town centre or use public transport?
I can see 'free parking' clogging streetwalk for pedestrians.

Eh? but the parking for towns already exists, its about making it affordable, no one is saying current parking restrictions etc would go as well.... & people simply will not use buses, pia to carry anything largish on a bus, they are also unreliable, dirty and expensive, would cost a fortune to upgrade & we don't have enough drivers!!

My neighbourhood used to have a problem with commuters parking all day and walking into town.

It now has residents parking which only operates from 11am - 2pm, so anyone can park outside those times. The small local car park, next to a recreation ground, doesn’t open until 10am each day.

This seems to have significantly cut down the number of shop, office and building workers parking there all day.

At least some of them seem to have gone to the Park and Ride sites, which can be full from quite early on, but at least it keeps traffic out of the town centre.

No shops worth visiting! It's all vape shops, Turkish barbers, opticians and betting shops. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Even when I go to actual bigger shopping places the stores never have anything in stock anyway! Pointless. Staff always say they can order it to the store for pick up....(So I have to come back again?? No)

It's easier to just make your starting point online where things are 'in stock'

Ours are all free OP, it's brilliant. Unfortunately, the town centre doesn't have much in it so I suppose there isn't a lot for people to go in for, which means it's never too full to park in the car parks. But given that most people around here live nowhere walkable to the shops, it's very handy. We pay for it via council tax which is fine by me; it's nice to see CT being spent on something I actually use. I think it works well for medium sized towns but large towns and cities rarely have enough parking for everyone who wants to go there so it's supply and demand.

My issue with park and rides is when I lived 2 miles from a big city centre, driving out of town to one of the two park and rides or driving a distance to get to a bus stop is madness. The bus service in my old city was so poor that this would be the only way of not paying for parking. And then there's some where the park and ride costs money which is beyond a joke; why not pay to inconvenience yourself and waste time standing around waiting for a bus with bags in the rain. Public transport needs to be massively improved in tourist cities and that's what tourist city taxes should be funnelled back into.

This

How would you stop the free parking getting filled up with office workers who currently leave their cars at home and get other transport into the centre because they can't afford to pay for 9hrs @£2/h but would happily park all day for free? Meanwhile a shopper coming in to spend £100 in shops will barely notice £2-£4 extra in their spend, and would rather spend that knowing that there's likely to be a space available rather than knowing it's technically free but it will be almost impossible to find a space.

Yes, I didn’t know how to describe it. But they spread onto the road where there used to be parking, not the pavements. In some places, they’ve extended the pavements into what was the road. It’s a very popular and bustling area.

There’s no parking at my local hospitals.

I do think so, actually. I think that I go to retail parks for this reason. Putting a parking lot next to a town centre will definitely revive it because people just want convenience especially in London. I think the car parks in central London can make a lot of money and make it more accessible for people.

It would have to be parking that you registered to use for a couple of hours to stop people taking advantage. Or a bit like Lidl when you have to buy something and have a receipt to validate parking else you’ll be charged

Stores can't afford the rates they are now expected to pay and can't compete with online deals or companies like Amazon where you can order something and have it on your doorstep the next day. I don't think parking has anything to do with it - there have been a few towns and cities trial free parking and it's made minimal difference to the foot fall