Topic: Car parking

[Froglegs]

Why is carparking so expensive?,just had a week in Cornwall and in that week spent £22 on carparks.What are the overheads on running a flat peace a tarmac.

[ACE]

It's not the running costs, it's the income that flat piece of tarmac would make if it was developed.

[Paulines7]

We have just come back from Cornwall too.  I wanted to buy a ball in the pet shop for our dog but for a few minutes stay it would have cost 90p for parking!  Meggie had to do without her ball!  Think of the trade that some of the shops must be missing out on.

[Froglegs]

I know what you are saying Ace,but why do they have to charge so much?. Went for a meal in Fowey 5 till 9 was £5!! had to go without me pudding :'(.

[Kea]

Yes parking charges are getting ridiculous, you can understand that in popular tourist resorts you are going to pay over the odds for parking. however our small Cambridgeshire market town is about to double it's parking charges across the board this can't be good for the local businesses. Except on market days the car parks are not full it doesn't encourage you to shop in your local town as you might as well go to the nearest city that has a bigger range and do all your shopping. I could understand if we had to pay more on market days which would free up parking when it's busy.

[ACE]

They really fleece the holidaymakers over here, but the residents have the choice to pay £50 for the year and not pay any parking charges. As my wife is an essential car user, working for the authority she gets a parking permit free. Also if you have a new car that has a low emmissions score, parking is free as well.

A lot of councils are going to introduce congestion/ emmisssion  charges, but I expect they will follow LCC and give it free for low emmission cars, also I suspect parking will be free, so as the council looks green. So get a fiat 500 or a nissan micra and park for free.

I would not personally be seen dead in one, but if you feel the urge, make sure you stick a giant sparkler on top when you go out as most owners drive them like dodgems anyway

[caroline7758]

Don't come to York if you don't like high car parking charges!And the alternative Park & Ride has just gone up to 2.30 return! >:( Realised why today- they've bought some flashy new buses!

[Carol]

They must have it right for once here in the Scottish Borders because the parking fees all over are 50p for up to 2 hrs with £1 up to 4 hrs.  The car parks are always well used and free from October to Spring?  So, its a visitor friendly area folks.   ;D ;D

[kt.]

My wife picked me up from Teeside airport yesterday..... cost a whopping £5 for 1hr 5 min >:(  Would of been £3 for under 1hr - but luggage unloading was delayed 15 minutes because they only had one luggage attendant on duty..... and even got 4 volunteers from the flight to assist loading it onto the turnstyle conveyor belt!

[carrot-cruncher]

The little town where I live is an old coal-mining town with a fairly stagnant economy.   The council had this huge (and very expensive) consultation regarding what they could do to res-start the local economy and at the end decided the best option would be to introduce car parking fees!!!!

It costs 50p for 1/2 hour, rising to 70p for 2 hours.   If I choose to travel the two miles into town by bus I can't buy a return ticket!!!!!   Each single ticket costs £1.80!!!!

I do walk and cycle into town as much as possible but sometimes it's just not possible with the weather or if I'm buying something large.

CC

[honeybee]

We stayed in Cornwall in June, in Port Isaac actually, and you have to leave your car in the car park as you cant really drive down into the village, well you can, but you would not want too  :o

So we bought a weekly rover ticket for £22 which you could apparantly use at other car parks, but it was difficult finding NCDC car parks, so more often than not we ended up forking out again and spent almost fifty quid on car park fees that week which seemed ridiculous!

Caroline we also went to York the other week....OMG  :o
I thinked we parked the car for something like three hours and if I remember rightly it was six pounds. We didnt even have that amount of cash on us only expecting to pay maybe two or three pounds, so there was a telephone number displayed that you could ring or text (of course incurring further charge) and pay your fees by debit card.
There were lots of foreign visitors who were queueing to pay and were very angry about the charges. I felt most embarrassed to be honest as they had every good reason to complain.