parking consultation: updates || your views in captivity (pdf file) || submit your views
Those car park charges ...
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Ashley Road car park at 1330, 1 November 23 spaces out of 69 occupied - this is typical. |
Many residents have queried the wisdom of charging for parking in Ashley Road car park, and see those charges as contributing to the car park's under-use while visitors park obstructively or congestively in the High Street or in Ashley Road itself.
Others regard as perfectly reasonable the levying of charges for visitor parking.
A few facts:
◊ The Ashley Road car park is owned by Elmbridge Borough Council along with many other car parks in the Borough. It is classed as a village car park.
◊ Charges were introduced following consultation within the Borough; in Thames Ditton this consultation was part of a wider consultation by EBC on parking and traffic issues and ideas in around 2000. Shortly afterwards responsibility for street parking and traffic control was ceded to Surrey CC Highways department - but EBC retains responsibility for its car parks.
◊ All EBC-owned car parks, including the one in Molesey, will be pay parks when the rolling programme of introduction of charges is completed by April 2007.
◊ The village car parks are very cheap: 20p per hour, £1.20 per day; and an annual season ticket costs £210. Charging rates are given on the EBC website. The Residents' Association has resisted - so far successfully - recent attempts by the Conservative-controlled Elmbridge BC Cabinet to increase these rates by 25%.
◊ Collectively the EBC car parks raise revenue for the Borough which is under EBC's control, and save additional Council Tax (much of our Council Tax goes to Surrey).
◊ It is a myth that Ashley Road car park is under-used because of the charges. Under-use of Ashley Road car park is a recurrent theme, e.g. in 'Thames Ditton Today' magazine from at least 1987 onwards to 2005, during which period the car park was free.
◊ To reverse the introduction of charges and make Ashley Road car park free again would entail convincing EBC that Thames Ditton is a special case and securing the votes of over 30 of the Councillors on EBC.
◊ If the car park remains under-used, EBC officials may one day be tempted to propose its sale in order to raise funds during an accounting year. We would resist this - but the issue is not likely to arise if the car park is used.
◊ Reducing all-day parking elsewhere in the proximity of the car park or effectively restricting all-day parking to residents with permits is one possible way to divert all-day parkers to Ashley Road car park.
In response to your questions in the Forum, Councillor David Lowe writes:
"Why pay for the car park??
"Its great when we don’t have to pay, but we all know there is no such thing as a “free lunch” … nor indeed “free car parks”. Car parks cost real money to establish, run, maintain and finance (and that includes business rates). So if the motorist doesn’t pay who does ?? – well ultimately it is Mr Joe Public either through the price he pays for goods in the shops, or the entry cost to a sporting event, or as a cost to the business where he works OR AS AN INCREASE IN THE COUNCIL TAX.
"So somebody has to pay and surprisingly the motorist is no longer viewed as a protected species who should be subsidised by the rest of the community – comprising old people, public transport users, cyclists … whoever. So why should it be any different for the car park in Ashley Road or elsewhere in Elmbridge.
"If you go shopping in Kingston you pay £1.20 an hour, the same sum will buy a full day’s parking in Ashley Road. If you have a car worth £10,000 and you drive 10,000 miles a year then your daily motoring costs are probably around £12.50, so for one tenth of that cost you can park all day close to your place of work. If your house or apartment does not have off street parking facilities then it has probably cost at least £10,000 less than one with such facilities against which daily parking charges in the village pale into insignificance.
"You didn’t pay in the past, you probably complain about the amount of Council Tax you pay and to square the circle something had to change … modest parking charges are the chosen answer.
"Comment has been made about the free parking at Mercer Close which provides a salutary lesson for all of us. That car park was established for users of the Library and Community Centre by Surrey County Council … the land was originally donated by the Milk Marketing Board . In their wisdom, and wishing to save money, Surrey CC attempted to demolish the Community Centre and sell the site and car park for private residential development in the heart of the Conservation area. The library would be have been left without a car park and that open corner of Giggs Hill Green would have been lost for ever. The RA Group and Elmbridge successfully fought the Proposal and as a result Elmbridge purchased Thames Ditton Village Hall (as it is now known) and half the car park from Surrey CC for ongoing Community use. Surrey are still trying to sell the rest to a developer.
"In comparable terms, would you be happy if Ashley Road car park were sold for intensive housing development in the centre of the Village as a means of marginally reducing our Council Tax??
"The High Street is over parked, but at least that slows the traffic to something close to a safe speed, more intelligent on and off street parking controls should be introduced, the requirement for Residents’ permits needs to be investigated further and elsewhere (notably around Thames Ditton BR station) targeting of all day parking by commuters and students must be addressed.
"However parking charges are not going to go away, we had to start with charging at Elmbridge Council’s own car parks (Surrey CC who control the roads and hence on-street parking would not countenance any form of on-street controls until off-street facilities had become chargeable). It was known that there would be displacement problems, but a start had to be made.
"Nothing in this world is perfect but your clever ideas and suggestions through the survey form, in the Forum and direct to Ben Ellis whose address and phone number is in 'Thames Ditton Today,' will help achieve a consensual solution, which might not suit everybody but it should serve the greater good.
"Suggestions - constructive suggestions - please!!
Councillor David Lowe