Do you tend to visit shops where parking is free?
I mostly avoid town centre shops [where parking is paid] and prefer slightly out of town retail parks where parking is usually free.
There has been lots of discussions where local traders claimed paid parking is killing high street shops which I think is somewhat valid.
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I recently went to Westfields (London) with my daughter and her boyfriend.
Parking came to £15.00
I will not be going back there in a hurry.....
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I always avoid paying for parking. Luckily, my wife works in Kettering town and we can park in her work car park all day should we wish to, which kinda solves that problem.
Otherwise, outta town places every time - easy to get to, plenty of parking and often grouped with other shops I might want to visit. Town centres might be pretty, but not always practical. They need to make it worth going into town, ie, make it very attractive and bring in shops and attractions that you cannot get on a retail park.
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Same down the road in Northampton Stu. The only way to begin to meet town centre demand was multi-storey and that has to be paid for. Charges are not too bad unless you're there all day but the hassle of dealing with the tight corners in Grosvenor Centre & the snip! wits who wait ages for somebody to load/vacate instead of going up a floor drive me nuts.
Fortunately the station car park, although priced only by the day, is never patrolled on a week end so I just leave car there and walk the last half mile.
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 13 Dec 10 at 00:37
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It's not just parking charges.
Negotiate round the numbskulls you share the roads with.
Run the gauntlet of speed and other cameras.
Find a parking space, testing that will be, then pay through the nose for it.
Avoid beggars, ne'er do well's, pick pockets, muggers and be deafened by screaming brats.
Heaven forbid you should need to locate a toilet.
Eventually find what you want then hump it all over the place and stagger back to car.
Return to car to find it damaged, and the parking gestapo has billed you for your trouble.
Repeat the first two in a foul mood.
Alternatively have a nice cup of tea and click a few buttons and let the nice courier driver deliver a few days later....bliss.
:-)
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Every time GB, every time.
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I avoid the big out of town shopping centres like Merry Hell and Trafford Centre like the plague... Thats where all the numbscull drivers go anyhow... And those crowds of shoppers... why would anyone want to go there in the first place?!
I suppose I'm lucky in that both my local town/city are quite good for shopping anyhow and even the out of town place is just across the ring road where we live, so you can walk between the two and although you can pay to park there are also enough streets round about where you can park and then only have a 5 minute walk to get to the shops... Though I know that the prospect of such a long walk puts many off!
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>>Though I know that the
>> prospect of such a long walk puts many off!
>>
And long may it stay that way, more parking for those of us prepared to walk a few yards or whatever the metric equivalent is.
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The Trafford Centre is my idea of shopping hell. There's only one decent shop, Modelzone, and it's right by one of the entrances. 75 yard walk from the car on the level...make a purchase, walk back and you're away. Free parking or I wouldn't go.
We generally find smaller towns pretty good, Northwich for example.
I also won't patronise any place where you have to pay to get in to actually shop.
Botany Bay mill at Chorley was like this, expensive for a family. They've seen the error of their ways now !
Manchester City Centre not bad for blue badge holders...plenty of on street bays and the pay & display spots are free for as long as you want. You need to know the little streets, and I have a set route passing most of the blue bays until one is found. Years of patrolling the City help here The firm I work for has bays on the street and I can use one of them sometimes, Wardens won't touch any car in our bays. I just have my fleet support signs on. Motorbike is good, Council have put rails on some of the wider pavements. i think they're for pushbikes but no-one seems to mind bikers locking their machines to them. Don't bother with car in the City this time of year, though. We just use the tram. Even better soon !
Ted
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"There's only one decent shop, Modelzone"
Damned right Ted. Fantastic shop. That's where I am while my wife is in some changing room for 3 hours.
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>> Damned right Ted. Fantastic shop. That's where I am while my wife is in some
>> changing room for 3 hours.
Missing a trick there BBD, sit outside, you get some great views.
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"Missing a trick there BBD, sit outside, you get some great view"
Tried that. They confiscated my tissues.
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Yes some of the sights made me cry as well. Still always the odd rose in the thorns.
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>> "There's only one decent shop, Modelzone"
>>
>> Damned right Ted. Fantastic shop. That's where I am while my wife is in some
>> changing room for 3 hours.
I think that's why Maplins shops in the city centres do so well
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>> I recently went to Westfields (London)
We go by train. That way the missus and I can enjoy a boozy lunch there.
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When we go on the tram, we enjoy a less boozy lunch at Sinclair's Oyster Rooms in the Old Shambles. A real treat.
Changing rooms ? Best thing is to go in one yourself, then after a few minutes shout loudly " There's no toilet paper in here, can anyone help me ? "
Tede
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Spot on observation. Local authorities never seem to make the connection between dead town centres and parking charges.
Contrast Northallerton and Alnwick. Northallerton has the disc system, get a disc from almost any shop, set the arrival time and leave it on display while you park free for the time allowed on the signs. An hour IIRC in the centre, which is lively and well patronised with a varied selection of shops. There are always people coming and going, and little trouble parking most of the time. Alnwick, on the other hand, means putting your hand in your pocket for a minimum of 80p I think for on-street parking in the centre and is a dead and alive hole by comparison. 80p is a deterrent to a speculative shopping trip even for those who don't object to it on principle.
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I refuse point blank to pay any parking charges, unless they can be refunded at a check out.
I have spent half a lifetime in retail and the stupidity of planners beggars belief. No wonder so many town centres are dead & dying when you have to pay exorbitant charges for a stinking multi storey.
Occasionally, to keep my better half happy, we go to Leeds shopping. We catch the train there for a couple of pounds, free parking and a 20 minute train ride. She shops to her hearts contents whilst I shop in Whitelocks & similar establishments. Another bonus is that going by train means that the shopping is restricted by weight considerations.
Result.
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"Another bonus is that going by train means that the shopping is restricted by weight considerations."
No fat people on the train?
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Northallerton is no longer free I'm afriad.
The High Street still has the 2 hour parking disc scheme in operation but the large carparks that used to be free are now charged. I don't remember how much it is as I have not used them since the charging was introduced but £1.50 for all day seems to ring a bell. It's 50p per day in Bedale, my local town but they also have 2 hour disc parking on the High Street.
The really annoying thing about the Northallerton system is the market on a Saturday which takes up a fair proportion of the on street free spaces.
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>> The really annoying thing about the Northallerton system is the market on a Saturday which
>> takes up a fair proportion of the on street free spaces.
Errrr..... Surely the market was there first and it's more a question of using the market place for parking at non market times??
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Big retail park in Stockport is patrolled by a private parking firm. They use small signs posted high up with all the terms and conditions in hard to read capital letters. It's not obvious, and there are no blue "P" pay and display signs.
Fine is £100, too. Went to the Comet there, handed over £650 for a TV, and walked out again to find a ticket on the car after 20 minutes. Took me 5 minutes to find a sign, and another 10 to find a working meter.
Immediately took the TV back for a refund and asked why they don't put a sign on their door informing customers there's a pay-and-display scam going on. Apparently the parking company told them they could be sued for infringing on their business and the muppets believed them!
Anyway, they lost the £650 on the TV and I ordered it from Amazon instead.
Never paid the fine, got a lot of post about it though and they dug my mobile number out from somewhere. They stopped calling after a torrent of abusive language from me though... quite funny if you read MSE, there are copies of all the letters and threats and an explanation of how they run the scam.
Last edited by: Alfa Floor on Sun 12 Dec 10 at 22:08
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"Went to the Comet there, handed over £650 for a TV, and walked out again to find a ticket on the car after 20 minutes. "
The store on the end offers free parking (next to Toys R Us). I think it's a computer shop (possibly PC world) but it's the last big store near the big roundabout. You still have to pay and display a ticket but the first hour is free.
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The places we mostly go are free parking but about once a year we go shopping to Cambridge city centre. Right in the centre is best at the Grand Arcade multi-story. They are trying to put cars off driving into the centre with a £10 parking charge for a few hours shopping/lunch.
Hardly surprising that we always find a space!
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And for some reason at the same area, the parking outside of PC World/Currys is free for about 1.5 hours. Press the button on a meter and it prints a ticket. So how is that logical or rational AF?
Well it's not is it. Well done for taking the TV back.
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That's where I got mine Alfa... SIL picked up ticket in my car while he went for change for machine. Excel parking...shower !
I didn't pay either...told them to contact the driver. Tossoirs.
They run our local one as well.....I keep trying but they haven't given me a ticket yet...one day perhaps !
Ted
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Well, maybe. The market has moved around over the years and today the cattle market is just off the High Street. The other market, for fruit, veg etc, is on the High Street on Wednesday and Saturday. The street has not been used for selling livestock since the end of the 20th century.
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Sinclairs what a brilliant pub. I tend not go there anymore though as it gets too busy at weekends.
I always get the tram into the city centre it is cheaper and easier but currently involves a ten minute car journey to get to the stop, that will change soon though!!
I live within walking distance to my local village and there a few smaller supermarkets and and a few chain stores. I can buy all my food within 5 minute walk away.
I avoid the Trafford Centre, too many blondes in minis crashing into people and too many men crashing into people because they are 'distracted'.
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>> Sinclairs
After it was moved for at least the second time (so it's not the original place then), it would be more convenient for some.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shambles_Square,_Manchester
The first move was only to jack it up but it was all hidden in Shambles Square when I first knew it. And it was a Shambles.
Sadly I have to say the IRA bomb transformed the city centre of Manchester for the good. Sad only because it took a terrorist bomb and not proper planned redevelopment. I was only surprised the.... no I'll self edit... I know how and where the vehicle could have been parked to make a real tragedy in 1996. We were bombed out of offices so I know the basement area.
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I think the city centre would have been regenerated even if it wasn't for the bomb. There is no way that tired old M&S building and all the crap would still be here today.
I think what the bomb did do is speed that process up by about five years.
I remember the day of the bomb very well I was playing Simcity 2000 on my old 486 SX2. My dad was in charge of letting council staff know of any terrorist alerts that day. He phoned my mum about five minutes after it happened to say there had been a major bomb and they don't know how many people are dead.
Luckily nobody died but I seem to remember an expecting mother lost her baby.
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I remember the day of the bomb. And a lot else related - I tried to get into our office for work. But I won't post on a forum. If the bomb was 24 hours earlier then I'd have had a problem!
Maybe the changes would have happened. But the crap shambles square got demolished/moved and the whole cathedral area opened up. But this is a parking charge thread.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Mon 13 Dec 10 at 00:22
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>> Luckily nobody died but I seem to remember an expecting mother lost her baby.
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If that is true, then someone DID die.
An unborn child IS a person - sadly sometimes life is cut way too short....
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I seem to remember it was a medical reason for it not directly caused by the bomb but shock from it may have triggered it. I would need to try and find the story.
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You guys, ONE IRA bomb?
You have no idea.
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Parking charge and economy - swiss tony
