Mrs F and I walked into town this morning, braving the crowds. As soon as I said I wanted to go and look at some car parks she not surprisingly left me. On my way I saw:
Oh dear!
Debenhams coming along nicely, and then on my way through the Cattle Market car park I saw these places at peak time (notice the date stamped pictures if you click to enlarge):
Then the piece de resistance, the top three decks of the Parkway multi-storey:
So this was right then:
(Sir Reggie, eat your heart out!)
Happy Christmas.
4 comments:
Paul - I undertook my once-a-year non-food shopping expedition today, and then went to Waitrose for our (hopefully) last visit of 2007. Victoria and I started in Marks & Spencer at 09.00 and arrived home at 14.30. My bank account is now empty until pay day next Monday week.
Your photos prove a point, but not the one you think. The Parkway Multi-Deck is the car park of last resort, but if town centre on-steet parking was 100% permit-holders only, there would be fewer spaces and more income for the council.
As the 'Farmer Youth' indicated at our last council meeting, sensible people dislike decked parking and a phasing out from 2009 would be a popular move, especially if replaced by permanent park and ride.
I'm a bit surprised by your taunting of Reggie Harland. I wouldn't do that to one of my electors. Some 'inner voice' would say 'don't'.
I'm not sure it is a good sign for Bury Town Centre that the multi-storey has so many empty spaces on the last Saturday before Christmas. Like myself many people have probably not bothered with Bury as we expect there not to be any space to park and without knowing if or where there is a park and ride have gone to Norwich, Ipswich or / and Cambridge instead.
I was waiting for the negative comments.
David - you seem to forget that on street parking is SCC's domain - at present. What would you do with the multistorey, pull it down? Hardly conserving our assets.
Incidentally, I was again impressed by how clean and open it is.
I wasn't taunting him really - was I?
PM - I suppose we can't win: no spaces bad - spaces bad!
To find Park & Ride go to the SEBC website, click 'tourism', 'shopping & parking' and 'park & ride' - or Google it - easy!
Paul - I can't seem to break this positive v negative rhetorical language which is endemic at SEBC. If you were the only advocate I would be less worried. PM isn't negative about anything and I don't think I am.
I'm well aware of the split in responsibility between the highway authority and the highway agency in Bury but, at present, it is far less expensive to park on-street than off-street. This is the wrong way round but even my modest proposals for change would still presume a residents rebate of £222 a year.
Allowing for an increase of £10 a year and with a proposed start in 2011, it would take until 2034 before this disparity was corrected - and that presumes a 'freeze' on quarterly season tickets in Ram Meadow and the Parkway Surface and Multi-Deck at £78 until then!
There wouldn't be any need to demolish the Parkway Multi-Deck as it would likely fall down as it becomes too costly to repair. These sort of structures take a terrible pounding and have only a limited shelf-life. If Park & Ride was introduced in 2009, I suspect that more than one town centre car park would quickly become obsolete but as has often been pointed out, Bury could benefit from such a 'positive' approach to traffic management.
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