like love to hatred turned, nor Hell a fury like a [frustrated
motorist] (with apologies to Edmund Spenser).
“Fury at new parking restrictions” proclaimed the front-page
headline in the “Haslemere Herald” in one of its November issues. They do Fury in Haslemere, a pleasant market
town tucked away in the far south west corner of Surrey, like they do Disgust
in Tunbridge Wells. And a short-term
suspension of a handful of on-street parking bays makes the top of the front
page in the local newspaper – aren’t we lucky to have nothing else to fret
about, eh?
The
back-story is that one of the through roads passing through the town, the
B2131, Lower Street (at bottom of the map extract below) had been closed for
several weeks in the summer while Centrica replaced gas mains underneath. View Larger Map
For the duration of the works, traffic passing through the
town on an east-west axis was diverted along Bridge Street and West Street,
slightly to the north. Both these
streets have significant amounts of on-street parking and this was suspended to
ensure that traffic could flow freely and – most importantly – that emergency
service vehicles, including fire appliances from the Fire Station located just
at the corner of Popes Mead, would not be impeded on their call-outs.
Some felt that the diversion of traffic away from the town
centre, and the loss of these parking spaces, had a detrimental effect on trade
for small shopkeepers in the town.
A private developer, building an apartment block and
associated retail space on Lower Street, was supposed to co-ordinate with Centrica on its own
need to impinge on road space at a certain phase of construction, but it failed
to do so, and consequently sought a traffic order later to close the road in
one direction so that they could erect scaffolding and hoardings and get their
work done. For this period, which was
applied for until February but in fact finished shortly before Christmas, West
Street again became part of the through-route, this time in one direction only
but, again to facilitate movements of fire appliances and buses, the parking
bays were suspended. Hence the fury.
Haslemere has a significant parking problem, primarily with
rail commuters, who come to the town’s railway station, which has fast services
to Waterloo which must rank among the fastest, in miles per hour, of all Home
Counties commuter journeys. This makes
the surrounding area very popular for more affluent commuters to jobs in the City
and West End, and residential development over the last decade or so has reflected
that. Further, residents of neighbouring
communities such as Liphook, which have their own stations on the line, often
prefer to drive to Haslemere rather than walk to the local station because the
choice of services is better.
Additionally, there is a surprisingly large number of residents who drive to the station even though they live within an easy walking or cycling distance of the station.
Additionally, there is a surprisingly large number of residents who drive to the station even though they live within an easy walking or cycling distance of the station.
As a consequence, the provision of station parking
off-street is woefully inadequate to the demand, and many hundreds of commuters
park on the surrounding streets. Even if
there were sufficient station parking, many of those would probably continue to
park on the street as long as no charge is made – I already observe on my way
to the station that the streets fill a lot faster than the official car parks.
Naturally this upsets residents of those streets. Often their upset is simply annoyance that
someone should have the temerity to park in their road, but sometimes it causes
real inconvenience. In some of the
closer streets which have houses with no, or only one, off-street parking space,
the result is that residents cannot park their own cars near their own homes. In other cases, commuters park so tightly
either side of a resident’s driveway that they cannot manoeuvre to access their
own home.
Overlay on this the economics of parking and parking
enforcement. The County Council is now responsible for
street parking enforcement since the responsibility was taken off the police,
and typically subcontracts to manage the borough’s off-street parking
enforcement. Parking enforcement is
clearly vital to keep roads clear and ensure passage of vital services such as
buses or ambulances, however it has a considerable financial cost, and like many
counties, Surrey currently operates parking at a deficit. Consequently, Surrey proposed a programme of
parking restrictions and charges, mainly aimed at all-day parking, pending the
rail operator funding and building additional station parking, after which the on-street
parking could be simply prohibited.
The proposals also took in a network of streets in the town
centre, where commuter parking is not the main issue, but parking congestion
and the same problems for residents arise for other reasons.
It should be noted that in almost all, if not all, of these
streets residents have long campaigned to the County to do
something about the problems they face.
As soon as the proposals were published, enter stage left
the “Haslemere Action Group”, a small but noisy group of individuals who
proceeded to stridently oppose the plans.
They have a website, which I am not going to link to but you can find it
at haslemereparkingdotcom. Have a look,
if you have no worries about your blood pressure. (Its self-description as an "open, sensible and democratic forum" brings to mind Voltaire's observation about the Holy Roman Empire: certainly they seem to be blocking my contributions now, even going to the length of removing a post effectively accusing local councillors of corruption, when I pointed out some factual howlers, rather than publishing my comments.)
They opposed both the restrictions and the proposed charges
across the board. They attended local
committee meetings of the County and Borough councillors and heckled and
barracked them. They ranted and grandstanded, all with the aim of killing the
proposals stone-dead. They succeeded,
insofar as the County retreated to reconsider its proposals and ensure that its
consultation processes were legally watertight before relaunching in modified
form this summer.
But the consultation process, scrupulously observing the legal requirements, was not good enough for the
HAG. They complained that the response rate
was low (30-35%) and overlooked the fact that responses in favour outnumbered
those against by two to one. They ignored previous
representations by residents’ groups which in some cases had almost unanimous
support. Against this they argued for
their own petition, of 1,000 signatures (about 6% of the town’s population) collected on the street, which
no doubt included many non-residents and no doubt also some who only signed to avoid
making a scene on the High Street.
The moving forces behind the parking campaign appear to be a
handful of local retailers, and a couple who live in a street which has no
off-road and no on-road parking. The latter
I suspect bought their house in the knowledge that they could not park a car
there, but the expectation that they could park it outside someone else’s home
in another street, free and without hindrance, and were happy to save the house
purchase price which personal parking would have implied. The proposals would have meant - will mean - buying a
season ticket for one of the borough car parks: at a discounted rate, but still a few hundred a year.
The former speak volubly and at length about the perceived
damage to their business which loss of
on-street parking would cause. This
despite the fact that the availability of paid-for off-street parking is more
than adequate, costing 50p-80p for the first hour, and even that is refunded
against your bill if you shop in the local Waitrose. They don’t mention the true existential
threats to their businesses, represented by a commercial landlord notorious for
its rapacity, the incursion of predatory chainstores – WH Smith being the
latest arrival – and in my view the offputting nature of the car-dominated town
centre. They also don’t mention what I
am sure is the real reason for their opposition – it is they who park, all day,
for free, in surrounding residential streets, to the annoyance of the residents of those streets, and do not want to lose this privilege.
Meanwhile, Haslemere is no cyclists’ paradise. While it is surrounded by breathtaking
off-road riding on the commons and Surrey Weald, many of the highways into and
through the town are deeply hostile to cycling, and cycle facilities are almost
non-existent. Probably about 60-70 commuters
from the railway station arrive by bike, completely saturating the current cycle parking – and the local MP Jeremy Hunt is being
helpful in pressing for additional parking capacity at the station – but this
option would only appeal to the bolder, youngish male, cyclist . In the town centre, you hardly ever see a
bicycle at all, unless it is me, going shopping. That can wait for another post.
I work for a local authority in the traffic and parking field and this story is a familiar one. The notion of "free" parking is a very popular one, and it easier to turn the uninformed bystander with an emotive appeal to their libertarian senses than to garnish them with facts and figures. It boils down to whether politicians have the balls to stick it out and ignore the hysteria.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment Wanderlust. It will indeed be interesting to see if the councillors have the cojones to see this through, although they do have a genuine "silent majority" in place here which should help steel their resolve.
DeleteIt is lso interesting to note that not all local chamber of commerce types bang the free parking drum. It was recently reported in The Wokingham Times (http://www.getwokingham.co.uk/news/s/2126463_free_parking_not_the_best_way_to_attract_shoppers) that its chairman of the chamber of commerce did not se free parking as the nbest way to attract shoppers, rather making the town an atractive place to shop. He notes that Reading has cars queing to enter its paid-for car-parks because people want to shop there.
This is actually an attractive town with some attractive independent retail offerings and very little incursion by chainstores, building societies, mobile phone shops & charity shops etc. The chamber of trade is doing itself no favours shouting that they are so weak that a little thing like paying for parking stands between them and oblivion.