The post you are reporting:
A letter to the leader:-
Hi Keith,
Just read through the 18 page Review of Parking Charges.
Here's my rather Deal-centric view. I'll try to be brief.
Firstly can we take it that the function of parking restrictions is to keep traffic flowing and to ration a finite resource when supply does not meet demand, and it's not meant to be a 'nice little earner' for the Council?
Let's look for a start at the proposals for two permits per household. Where I live (Victoria Road) are large terraced Victorian houses with no scope for adding individual parking in front or behind the property (which tends to bugger things up anyway as you end up with dropped curbs, dog-bone markings and the loss of an on-street space whether the house owner is parked up or not).
A few years ago (and I was one of the people who complained to get it changed - in spite of having two cars at the time) residents parking permits were handed out almost on demand. In spite of the fact of many of us having permits, few could actually find a space near their house (some of us wash our own car) and most people were kept unhappy with parking for most of the time.
With the rationing down to one permit we are almost guaranteed a place somewhere close to our house, most of the time, and get used to the fact that we must find somewhere else to park the second car.
Granting second car permits will have little effect on revenue, will not produce one extra parking space and will result in more people being even more pissed off with the council for more of the time when they find that the permit they've paid for is next to useless.
Next we look at charging for parking on Sundays.
Sainsburys car park is almost empty overnight Saturday which suggests that it is NOT full of people parked up there who are down for the weekend and wish to avoid parking charges.
I've talked to the manager of Sainsburys who admits that parking at 15.00 hours on Sunday is 'tight'. Of course it is. People are doing their shopping. And they are doing their shopping there rather than going to Westwood with its 58 other retail outlets, free parking and a cinema showing films at £4.99 a pop!
I presume Sainsbury's Head Office were asked for their view on Sunday charging? What was their attitude to DDC driving their customers away? PLEASE don't tell me they were never consulted.
What will happen when you start charging for on-street parking in Victoria Road (for example) on Sundays?
What will happen is you will get the same farce as we had over Christmas where cars end up ticketed whilst those parked on the opposite side of the road, on single yellow lines, can stay there all day as the restrictions are only Mon - Sat! There's sensible for you.
I note also that according to 4.7 “that when special events are held in the town centre (predominantly at weekends) the pressures on parking become even greater.”
Of course they do. That's why they are 'special events'. I believe the village of Pilton has much the same problem with the Glastonbury Festival but they don't mess their locals around all the year round because of it.
Were Deal Town to get into the Premiership perhaps we'll have to reconsider but until then?
Nothing in the report has convinced me that we need to charge for Sunday Parking. References are made to such as the Deal Parking Strategy (lovely document - really glossy - how much did the consultants cost us this time?) which is full of the the usual guff about holistic level solutions and road space allocations and stakeholder engagement (could these reports pass the Turing Test? Just wondering) but has no figures accessible on-line on which it was presumably based.
Where are the figures to suggest that Deal has reached peak-Car and between what hours and what days and which time of year and what were any 'special events'?
The only sensible thing they mention is differential pricing which I suppose they had to mention having heard of Donald Shoup's research, but even here they describe it a possibly being 'confusing to visitors'. FFS.
At least I read all 765 pages of his magnum opus!
On the plus side I note that in making our report 'consideration has been given to equality issues'!
Ha, bloody ha!
Grateful for your comments.
Best wishes
Haddock