P J Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 Inky, if you think that the present, loss making parking scheme can be made bureaucracy free by increasing the amount of permits many times over you are living in a fantasy land. How much would all those resident only parking bays and signs cost to put on every street , road, avenue, close etc. and that's before you start with the actual administering and enforcing the scheme. It would be ridiculous. As for renting the one space to two people that's also potty, where would you park if you were off ill or on leave and the other paying party was in your space? Couldn't work sorry but at least its a lot less stupid than your suggestion we infect ISIS with ebola. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inky pete Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 That's only the same as anywhere else. If I get home and someone is parked outside my house, then I park somewhere else. The alternative is to permanently reserve huge chunks of perfectly good parking space - often in areas close to the town centre or hospital - for the exclusive use of residents who aren't even there when most people want to access the town or attend an appointment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P J Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 that's got to be the earliest cuckoo ever Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inky pete Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 Inky, if you think that the present, loss making parking scheme can be made bureaucracy free by increasing the amount of permits many times over you are living in a fantasy land. Just issue EVERY council tax paying resident with 2 (or 1 if they claim single occupancy discount) permit and send them with the council tax bill - bureaucracy zero, cost zero. How much would all those resident only parking bays and signs cost to put on every street , road, avenue, close etc. No bays, signs or otherwise on every street, just put it on all the borough boundary signs that a residents parking permit zone starts here. and that's before you start with the actual administering and enforcing the scheme. NO admin cost. Traffic wardens are already being paid for. Residents could even report non-permit showing vehicles by photo to an app. It would be ridiculous. And reserving a parking space on a public road all day every day for the exclusive use of one person isn't???? As for renting the one space to two people that's also potty, where would you park if you were off ill or on leave and the other paying party was in your space? Already happens. WBC routinely issue more permits for a given scheme than there is road space for cars - and that's without visitor permits. Couldn't work sorry but at least its a lot less stupid than your suggestion we infect ISIS with ebola. Tell that to the 132 kids the mad mullahs ordered murdered in their own classrooms in Pakistan this week. Extremists and terrorists can't be reasoned or negotiated with - they need to be erradicated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P J Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 I think you are confusing Isis with the Taliban. I couldn't tell them as they are dead, as would hundreds of millions of people if anyone ever acted on your suggestions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P J Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 Are you saying that nobody from outside Warrington woyld be allowed to park anywhere in the town ? You are quite naive but you do make me laugh so please carry on. Do you still want a no parking zone within a given distance of all schools? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inky pete Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 Are you saying that nobody from outside Warrington woyld be allowed to park anywhere in the town ? They could use the many privately owned car parks at the retail parks, supermarkets, business premises, etc. for free, or pay to park on street or in the council owned car parks either on a daily basis or by buying an annual permit. Do you still want a no parking zone within a given distance of all schools? Yes, you've seen the downright dangerous parking around schools in the mornings and afternoons - and the number of obese kids being ferried about everywhere - have you? As I said, I'm against permit parking schemes anywhere - I believe that the public highway should remain just that, public. But if we are to have them they should be available to ALL of the residents of the borough who fund them. I'm just outlining one way that could be acheived. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inky pete Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 you do make me laugh so please carry on. I suppose you find that less taxing than actually engaging with any of the points I've raised and attempting to use facts to refute them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P J Posted December 19, 2014 Report Share Posted December 19, 2014 So if you have a permit to park and live near a school what do you do? Here is a way to remove all the bureaucracy, expense and stupid parking ideas, Leave it all as it is and forget your madcap scheme, as imperfect as it is the present situation still makes miles more sense than your ideas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grey_man Posted December 20, 2014 Report Share Posted December 20, 2014 I suppose you find that less taxing than actually engaging with any of the points I've raised and attempting to use facts to refute them. PJ sees it as his role not to disagree with you, but to drown you out. If he can't prove you wrong, he'll just insult you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P J Posted December 20, 2014 Report Share Posted December 20, 2014 Not at all, it is just a really ridiculous suggestion to force every person to pay to park on the street and to convert every street in the borough to permit only parking. If the flood of common sense drowns you then that's because of the bonkers nature of your argument. If it holds enough water the idea will float. Do you , Grey Man, believe that the whole town should be made into a residents only parking zone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grey_man Posted December 20, 2014 Report Share Posted December 20, 2014 You know what I think. If the council are going to conflate everything, each ward plus the council's own staff car parks should contribute an equivalent amount to the 'surplus' and all should be subject to minute by minute checks by traffic wardens as they are in those areas the council already targets. For example, I'd copy the logic of the car park for Stockton Heath medical centre to staff parking. Council staff would have to guess how long meetings will take and get the necessary ticket while a warden stands next to their vehicle waiting for them to slip up. Or they remove all doubt by paying more than they need to. It's lucrative for the sick of South Warrington so no doubt would wipe out that £108k in no time if councillors and employees were subject to the same idea. Linda Dirir is keen to target people outside of her ward for this sort of thing so would also be good to see her carry the same approach on to people in her own ward. I'm sure we could find ways to extract money from her residents. If this means people coughing up substantially more, pressure being applied to local businesses and the creation of a wide range of parking problems, then that would only be fair Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P J Posted December 21, 2014 Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 So, let me get this straight, you wish to make everywhere as bad as the worst case scenario,Stockton Heath Medical Centre as a way of making things fair? If you take that way of thinking to its natural conclusion all parking must be charged at the same rate as Walton Gardens and I , for one, wouldn't want to see that. You didn't answer what I asked though which was do you believe the whole town should be made a resident only parking zone or like me do you find it a crackpot idea? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grey_man Posted December 21, 2014 Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 No. I'm being facetious to point out that the council would never dream of treating its employees and councillors in the way it does the people it deems need to be targeted. I'm also highlighting the way a politician targets the sick of another ward in favour of her own voters. Can you imagine how people would feel if the council under a conservative administration deliberately targeted people attending medical facilities in Orford and Bewsey to keep parking free in Lymm? And that the Lymm councillor responsible publicly crowed about it. That. I don't have an opinion about the other thing. I'll think about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P J Posted December 21, 2014 Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 My dentist is in town centre, I have to pay to park, when I visit the hospital I have to pay, if I go to the Forge I pay and I live in none of those places. It is far easier for local people to walk to a local car park than it is for somebody not local ergo them will contribute more than us. The Stockton Heath car park would be running at a loss too if people didn't kindly top up the takings via fines for being too stupid, arrogant or lazy to pay the correct charge. I think you are a little obsessed with trying to put these things fown to political bias when I think it has more to do with general ineptitude and a short sighted parking policy throughout the borough Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grey_man Posted December 21, 2014 Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 It is political because what Linda Dirir is doing is a mild form of gerrymandering based on conflating things that have nothing to with each other so one can subsidise the other. I agree with you about the council's short sightedness especially with regard to the town centre but you're missing my point. The problem is the conflation not what is happening in each case. As it happens The Forge always made a profit. Now they're looking to make more from it, especially with remarkably aggressive policing of people attending the medical centre who cannot always predict how long they will be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfie Posted December 21, 2014 Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 I just can't believe that people are promoting a so called fair policy of charging everyone the same for using a car park, and of charging everyone for parking in a residential area. Surely the aim should be to dispense with charges altogether, and traffic wardens. In Widnes (as I already mentioned) the car parks are free. No one is charged to park in front of their own house and there aren't any traffic wardens and it seems to work. The benefit from that is that hundreds of people from Warrington, Runcorn and St Helens regularly shop in Widnes, helping businesses and employment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P J Posted December 21, 2014 Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 I have to agree with you Wolfie, the only fair system is free parking everywhere. The notion of charging every household in the town to park on their own drive or in front of their house is barking. Grey Man, The Forge as a car park runs at a loss, it is parking fines from the stupid, arrogant or lazy users which makes the money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grey_man Posted December 21, 2014 Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 Absolutely Wolfie They're also not asked to cover the losses made by the council's own employees and councillors Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davy51 Posted December 21, 2014 Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 Yesterday i reluctantly went to the cemetery fearing massive congestion down Winwick Road at around 2pm on what was the last Saturday before Christmas. I couldn't believe how little traffic i saw so maybe the parking charges have finally driven the shoppers away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grey_man Posted December 21, 2014 Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 I have to agree with you Wolfie, the only fair system is free parking everywhere. The notion of charging every household in the town to park on their own drive or in front of their house is barking. Grey Man, The Forge as a car park runs at a loss, it is parking fines from the stupid, arrogant or lazy users which makes the money. Not true. And surely your epithets could apply equally to councillors and employees who want their parking subsidised by local people and businesses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazj Posted December 21, 2014 Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 I think a time should come when the pay and display ticket machines will be illegal unless they give change How can it be right to go and pay for something up front (possibly double the price if the fee is a £1 and you only have a £2 coin) and then not have the facility to get money back if you don't use it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P J Posted December 21, 2014 Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 It is true that its parking fines and not parking fees that make the car park show a profit. We did it all 18 months ago. ps Dizzy forgot to deduct the running costs so the profit was considerably less than her £85 k figure These are factual figures.... Parking Figures (Warrington) 2010-11: off street car parking surplus of £20k and residents’ parking zones deficit of £174k 2011-12: off street car parking surplus of £50k and residents’ parking zones deficit of £129k Apparently it cost the council £68k to run SH Forge Car Park (including maintenance) for financial year 2011/2012. broken down as follows: · £18,011 – Non-domestic rates, electricity, surface water charges, car park maintenance · £23,648 – Internal WBC staff costs for the proportion of their time spent administering this car park · £27,086 – APCOA costs for enforcement and cash collections Takings in Stockton Heath car park were approximately £100 a day which gave over £30k a year in ticket income to WBC. A private company employs the CEOs. (parking wardens) The private company is paid a fixed price by WBC to cover their staff, IT equipment etc. The private company does not receive any income from penalty charges. So .....2175 parking fines issued in Stockton Heath car park and all the money goes to the council so SH car park actually made the council a profit of £30k + £55k (parking fines) = £85k in one year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grey_man Posted December 21, 2014 Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 Fair enough. So the answer to the need to make a surplus on parking is simply to introduce the same regime to employee parking. Pay and display based on a guess of how long the space is needed, No change from the machines and a traffic warden never more than 2 minutes away? Or maybe somebody at the council could start thinking things through. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P J Posted December 21, 2014 Report Share Posted December 21, 2014 If you don't transgress they can't fine you. If you don't know how long you will be parked for there is nothing to stop you coming back for another ticket before the other runs out, other than laziness or stupidity. I don't think we need a surplus. Free parking throughout the borough would be the best all round but it won't happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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