FabSwingers.com forum: Car parking charges

By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

Obviously they have little control over private car parking companies, but should councils waive or reduce car parking charges in light of the struggling high street ?

Manchester City Council has just done the opposite and actually extended the hours you have to pay for parking 'on street' to include late evenings and Sundays.

Charges now apply Monday - Sunday, 8am to 8pm

•Up to 30 minutes - £1.35

•Up to 1 hour - £2.70

•Up to 1 hour 30 minutes - £4.00

•Up to 2 hours - £5.40

May seem expensive, BUT :

As a comparison, a city centre car multi-storey managed on behalf of the council is :

2 hours: £6.80

2 to 4 hours: £14.00

4 to 6 hours: £20.40

6 to 24 hours: £25.50

With charges like that, it is no wonder that out of town shops are flourishing over the high street.

I also think that as well as being a cash generator for a council that is already struggling to balance budgets, it is also an attempt to force people onto public transport - which is an OK plan if it actually worked.

Well, it's thursday so I thought, why not ?

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Nottingham have done something very similar. Luckily we've got good bus, train and tram routes plus park and rides. It's very rare I drive into town. Ms

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By *ottyhunkCouple
over a year ago

Leyburn

Its expensive in York, but was has surprised us that right in Liverpool city centre opposite Lime St Station the car park charges are very reasonable - £13 for 24hrs. It is right where all the shops are and we have used it for 3 yrs now.

Oh, and BTW, have still kept our hubcaps too!!

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By *etillanteWoman
over a year ago

I am about 45 mins from Manchester, but find it cheaper to go to Manchester by bus. OK it takes an extra 30 mins, but go with a friend and it costs £10.00 return. If I do drive I use the old brewery site which is £3.00 for 24 hours

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

lucky for me I only go into manchest for work now so get all my parking charges back, cost me £14 the other day as I had to go and come back.

And then they moan about the town centres of towns not doing the trade

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

"I am about 45 mins from Manchester, but find it cheaper to go to Manchester by bus. OK it takes an extra 30 mins, but go with a friend and it costs £10.00 return. "

Yes, but you have to skateboard back !

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

St. Andy's charges £1 an hour max of two hours on-street parking in town centre, but most of the car parks around town are free.

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By *eighleedsMan
over a year ago

leeds

this was a discussion on 5 live, (Tony Livesey ) the othe rnight, they interviewed a Manchester councillor about parking charges in city centres,

He said (words to the effect of - i cannot remember the exact wording) it should be illegal for out of town shopping centres to offer free parking as thats not a level playing field for the town centre shops.

Erm his council has the power to make it a level playing field, they can reduce or scrap the in town parking charges.

They wont do this though as parking charges generate a massive amount of income for the council, any council not just Manchester

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Oh, and BTW, have still kept our hubcaps too!!"

oi cheeky!! hubcaps?? did you park you car in 1985????

ha, liverpool takes the piss now, at one point liverpool1 was charging £1 for every 20mins parked! its come down now to a more reasonable £2.40 an hour, still takes the piss tho! (bit of advice for anyone going to liverpool shopping etc, park in the car park at the echo arena, far cheaper than liverpool1/john lewis car parks, and is only a nice pleasant 5min walk through the albert dock to town!)

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By *herry n JonesyCouple
over a year ago

Oxfordshire / Leicester

They increased the hours that you have to pay for parking where I live. There was so much of an uproar, plus the discovery that there were a few hundred free parking permits for council employees, that it was revoked in the summer.

A council that realised it had cocked up.. *gasp*

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

"I am about 45 mins from Manchester, but find it cheaper to go to Manchester by bus. OK it takes an extra 30 mins, but go with a friend and it costs £10.00 return. If I do drive I use the old brewery site which is £3.00 for 24 hours"

oh and if you're coming in at wkend, after 12 on saturday and all day Sunday the streets round the bottom of Rochdale Road (Angel Meadows area) are free of parking charges (at the moment) - and it's only 5 mins walk into the Arndale

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By *andKCouple
over a year ago

Norfolk

being the cinic that I am Councils have to raise revenue one way or another to pay for the services they provide, money raised via parking fees will be calculated in their overall budget therefore if they drop the parking charges either private household council tax will rise, the shops will have to pay more business rates or services will be reduced even further than they are now.

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By *atisfy janeWoman
over a year ago

Torquay

If councils never charged for parking the deficit this would creat would only come back to people as increased Council Tax charges.....and for those that don't use a car it would be unfair.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Westminster council have just postponed plans to introduce evening and weekend parking charges in the west end due to a massive campaign against it from theatre and restaurant/hotel workers and owners.

I'm not quite sure how far they've got with their plan to make sleeping rough or feeding the homeless illegal in the borough yet

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By *eighleedsMan
over a year ago

leeds

"If councils never charged for parking the deficit this would creat would only come back to people as increased Council Tax charges.....and for those that don't use a car it would be unfair."

slightly OT but about as fair as there is no such thing as a concessionary bus pass for pensioners or kids under a certain age, some one has to pay for that,

look at your council tax bill, the bit for public transport, is paid to the bus companies, to make up those fares to full fare,

so us car users could argue part of our council tax is used to subsidise those who do not, and why should we pay for that?

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Should have mentioned that applies to on street parking..Prices for NCP car park in W1..

Mon-Sun 24 hours

£7.00 / hour

£14.00 / 2 hours

£27.00 / 4 hours

£40.00 / 6 hours

£47.00 / 24 hours

£70.00 / large vehicle

£5.00 / motorcycle

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Park on the old Boddingtons site, its just a few mins walk from the MEN much cheaper and on a sunday its only £1

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

In Manchesters case it is a definate way of raising revenues.

I knew this would happen after the plans to create a congestion charge were abandoned.

We are also paying for the 2 new tram lines that few people wanted and have shut many businesses down already as traffic diverts away from the main roads out of the city to avoid the congestion the roadworks are creating.

Add to that that the free parking bays along the tram route have been removed to make the road wider - thus no stopping, thus a major reduction in 'passing trade'.

It has totally destroyed the small town centre nearest to me - to the degree where all that remains is a couple of £ shops and a couple of take aways.

Hence why I shop in the city centre or at out of town centres.

I don't mind paying to park in the city centre if it is my choice to take the car in- however, I don't think anyone appreciates being ripped off

So when you visit places like the Trafford Centre (with free parking) the car parks always seem to be full.

My friend has worked for the same retailer in the city centre and at the trafford centre.

Despite being a smaller store, the takings at the Trafford Centre store have now started to vastly outstrip those of the 'flagship' high street store in the city centre - suggesting that people are indeed altering where they shop !

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

£7 an hour to park in W1???? Fook me you can buy 3 bottles of wine for just a few quid more than that in my local offy!!!

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

I fell asleep in a motorway cafe carpark for some well- needed sleep and was hit by a £80 bill because I went over the 2 hours. Be warned lol. I didn't pay as it was an illegal charge

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By *un_JuiceCouple
over a year ago

Nr Chester

"I fell asleep in a motorway cafe carpark for some well- needed sleep and was hit by a £80 bill because I went over the 2 hours. Be warned lol. I didn't pay as it was an illegal charge"

All charges only become legal when you sign and return them. It's contractual law between the company/issuer and you, in this instance you being the corporation, the corporation society generate at birth, you choose to conform and many of us don't even 'real'ise

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

In that case, I'mn glad I didn't enter into any correspondence with the company. The letters became very intinidating, threatening the possiblity of problems with getting future credit, court proceedings etc. If I hadn't sought advice in the first instance about the veracity of it, I would have paid up and not known.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

Portsmouth city centre has a number of decently priced car parks, my two fave are £1.10 for the first hour and £1 per hour thereafter and another is £2 for two hours. Around Old Portsmouth there are a number of roads that are free for either two or three hours. All of these car parks are ten minutes from Gun Wharf which means you save:

a) time on the [often horrendous] queues to get in and

b) enough for your coffee when you do arrive

Personally, I use the free parking on the streets as two to three hours of shopping is plenty enough for me and that includes an hour lazing in the coffee shop!

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

And yet a town full of rich folks like Newmarket charges about 50p for 3 hours.

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By *taryscorpCouple
over a year ago

boston

"If councils never charged for parking the deficit this would creat would only come back to people as increased Council Tax charges.....and for those that don't use a car it would be unfair."

do we not pay enough tax, road tax,tax on fuel, no one said we wanted free parking,just affordable parking! we live 5 miles from the nearest town and it would cost us a fortune on the bus.

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By *atisfy janeWoman
over a year ago

Torquay

[Removed by poster at 15/12/11 22:28:54]

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By *atisfy janeWoman
over a year ago

Torquay

[Removed by poster at 15/12/11 22:29:16]

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By *atisfy janeWoman
over a year ago

Torquay

"If councils never charged for parking the deficit this would creat would only come back to people as increased Council Tax charges.....and for those that don't use a car it would be unfair.

do we not pay enough tax, road tax,tax on fuel, no one said we wanted free parking,just affordable parking! we live 5 miles from the nearest town and it would cost us a fortune on the bus."

You don't pay the stated taxes to local councils though do you?....you pay them to central government, who are not about to begin subsidising free car parking in villages, towns and cities throughout the country are they?

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

It's the norm in rip off Britain.

Ride a bike and laugh in their faces.

People should vote with their feet and with the success of places like Meadowhell and the Trafford Centre parking charges are a significant detriment to high street footfall.

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By *waymanMan
over a year ago

newcastle

"In Manchesters case it is a definate way of raising revenues.

I knew this would happen after the plans to create a congestion charge were abandoned.

Add to that that the free parking bays along the tram route have been removed to make the road wider - thus no stopping, thus a major reduction in 'passing trade'.

It has totally destroyed the small town centre nearest to me - to the degree where all that remains is a couple of £ shops and a couple of take aways.

Hence why I shop in the city centre or at out of town centres.

I don't mind paying to park in the city centre if it is my choice to take the car in- however, I don't think anyone appreciates being ripped off

So when you visit places like the Trafford Centre (with free parking) the car parks always seem to be full.

My friend has worked for the same retailer in the city centre and at the trafford centre.

The clue is probably in the name of the congestion charge.

Without active parking management or a congestion charge Manchester would be even more congested than it is already.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

the thing that gets me...although they aren't council car parking sites so deviating slightly here...is hospital car parking charges!!! some of those are extortionate!!!

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

morrisons or asda tend to be the cheapest place to park £1 for 2 hours no wonder people wont pay the ncp charges x

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

"The clue is probably in the name of the congestion charge.

Without active parking management or a congestion charge Manchester would be even more congested than it is already."

Thing is, (from my side of town at least) it was rarely congested before they started digging the place up to put tram tracks up the main roads !

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By *emima_puddlefuckCouple
over a year ago

hexham

There is a lovely little market town,Corbridge,near us.By a quirk of history it is free to park in the center(something to do with it being a market or a village green i think)It is a thriving place,with lots of shops...

We need to subsidize public transport and encourage ppl back to the high streets and town centers.

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