Pay and Display annoyance

[cml]

Just spent a week driving around Dorset's tourist spots and found that all the Pay and Display car parks annoyed me.

They were mostly £1.20 per hour (you can generally tell what a place thinks of itself by how much the council charge). You have to decide how long you want to stay before you park. Grrr. I don't know how long I am going to stay, perhaps I'll find a nice tea room or perhaps not, perhaps the sun will come out etc. I'll be spending money on tourist jaunts, but sometimes the car parks feel like I am being touched for cash a bit too heavily and before I've seen anything.

[aizvara]

They are a pain. The council car parks up in and around the North Yorkshire coast seem to share tickets, so you could continue using one ticket down the road at the next car park should you not find an appropriate tea room. All touristy places should do this.

[cml]

Now that is a good idea. Just buy the time and use it where you will.

[CraigyMc]

aizvara said:

They are a pain. The council car parks up in and around the North Yorkshire coast seem to share tickets, so you could continue using one ticket down the road at the next car park should you not find an appropriate tea room. All touristy places should do this.

Probably doesn't make as much money as single carparks though.

The council are in the business of making money to perpetuate their business.

[cml]

The Councils are not in the business of making money - they are there to manage the local amenities for our benifit. This has a cost of course, but it is not a profit-lead business. I have been known to turn around and go elsewhere. It just feels like the moment you arrive anywhere nice, you get mugged for a fiver. Being realistic - yarda yarda - still grates though.

[66comanche]

cml said:

The Councils are not in the business of making money - they are there to manage the local amenities for our benifit. This has a cost of course, but it is not a profit-lead business.

Joking aside, I will almost always park wherever it is free and enjoy the walk and fresh air - there are many slovenly types who must park as near as they can to wherever they want to go, I enjoy walking even with baggage.

[ROB8 F]

Print your own tickets?

haha but on a serious note about this, there was a guy in the news a while back caught doing this, he'd been saving himself £3 a day, 5 times a week for about 4 years or so, and i think only fined about £200 after finaly being caught.(don't qoute me though, not sure about the exact details, something like that)

[cml]

66comanche said:

cml said:

The Councils are not in the business of making money - they are there to manage the local amenities for our benifit. This has a cost of course, but it is not a profit-lead business.

Joking aside, I will almost always park wherever it is free and enjoy the walk and fresh air - there are many slovenly types who must park as near as they can to wherever they want to go, I enjoy walking even with baggage.

Me too - on a holiday with a friend with heavy camera kit, plus the car parks in a little village is about the only place to park in the summer - all the verges where already full of (possibly illegally) parked cars. Wadda mean joking aside?

[Gruber]

cml said:

The Councils are not in the business of making money - they are there to manage the local amenities for our benifit. This has a cost of course, but it is not a profit-lead business.

They need to get the money from somewhere to manage those amenities.

Car park income is a significant revenue stream for most local authorities. And with the CSR and budget cuts, don't be surprised if Councils look to put up parking charges to bolster their dwindling budgets.

ETA: but I agree that it's pretty inconvenient to have to guess up front how long you want to stay and the "one ticket for all car parks" idea is a cracker.

Edited by Gruber on Tuesday 19th July 07:03

[Paul Drawmer]

My pet gripe is the £1.xx charge. No change given, so actually many people and up paying more, and I bet that is factored in.

[Deerfoot]

cml said:

The Councils are not in the business of making money -

Have another.......

[jeevescat]

North Dorset District Council manage the car parks as cash machines, with no regard for tourists or local businesses.

[Harji]

aizvara said:

They are a pain. The council car parks up in and around the North Yorkshire coast seem to share tickets, so you could continue using one ticket down the road at the next car park should you not find an appropriate tea room. All touristy places should do this.

Which is very common in America, of course it's far too sensible and most councils would say that they need to generate money to pay their underworked & overpaid Cheif Executives.

[lost in espace]

North Cornwall allow you to use tickets in other car parks. Are you sure the Devon ones didn't - were the tickets car park specific?

[Trevelyan]

lost in espace said:

North Cornwall allow you to use tickets in other car parks. Are you sure the Devon ones didn't - were the tickets car park specific?

Are you sure they still do? Kerrier DC (West Cornwall) didn't allow you to transfer tickets. Now that all the former Cornwall district councils have been merged into one unitary authority it wouldn't surprise me if the new Cornwall Council adopted whichever system makes them the most money.

[Helicopter123]

Deerfoot said:

cml said:

The Councils are not in the business of making money -

Have another.......

And one more



You just need to suck it up safe in knowledge that you are helping fund the wages of some non-job or other...

[cml]

Helicopter123 said:

And one more



You just need to suck it up safe in knowledge that you are helping fund the wages of some non-job or other...

I don't get all these for the statement. They aren't damn it - they manage OUR stuff.

[Riley Blue]

cml said:

I don't get all these for the statement. They aren't damn it - they manage OUR stuff.

Ignorance of how the public purse is spent is widespread on PH; it's a standard reaction.

[Deerfoot]

Riley Blue said:

cml said:

I don't get all these for the statement. They aren't damn it - they manage OUR stuff.

Ignorance of how the public purse is spent is widespread on PH; it's a standard reaction.

It`s the mis-management of our stuff that grates most people though.

This thread is about the collection of parking fees though isn`t it?

Let`s take Salisbury as an example. At the start of this financial year, all car park charges were raised and the facility to park for under two hours in the main car park was removed, resulting in a minimum charge of £2.20 to park.

Park and ride incidentally costs £3.50 for a family so unless you intend to stay for in excess of three hours it`s more expensive to use it. Weren`t these schemes intended to encourage people to leave their cars away from city centres?

Anyway, the result is that, in the first six-month period, car park revenue in Salisbury has decreased compared with the first six months of the 2010 financial year as locals have decided to stay away.

It`s also interesting to note that, the parking charges in Trowbridge where the charges are set by Wilts Council, are significantly cheaper than Salisbury. Oh, the number of Council employees who get free parking is huge too.

[dowahdiddyman]

[quote=Paul Drawmer]My pet gripe is the £1.xx charge. No change given, so actually many people and up paying more, and I bet that is factored in.
[/quote

Quite agree, out local town thieves charge 80p for one hour knowing most people haven`t got the change so drop a pound coin in. Another thing they do is have it that you have to enter the last three letters of you registration so that the ticket is non-transferable, also they are not transferable between different car parks, robbing barstewards.