Parking "strategy"uses sledgehammer to crack drivers' nuts

After all the chaos concerning car parking in recent weeks, it comes as something of a surprise to find that Boston Borough Council actually has a strategy for the coming five years – which is to be debated by the council’s cabinet of curiosities tomorrow.
Yet again, it depends on the iron fist in the iron glove approach, with the number one objective of improving traffic flow and reducing congestion.
A report says that key to this is the introduction of civil parking enforcement to provide a robust on-street parking enforcement regime in Boston.
Hand in glove with this is an evaluation of the feasibility of introducing residents parking schemes in congested residential streets which – whilst it could cost £30,000 to £50,000 per scheme to set up - would be offset by selling permits.
There is also a proposal to evaluate a park-and-ride scheme to link with the Into Town bus service. Next on the list is increasing the availability of on and off-street parking in areas of highest demand. Headlines from this include increasing “turnover” (i.e. profiting from car drivers) by enforcing compliance with maximum parking periods; introducing on-street pay and display parking in the areas of highest demand for parking; encouraging greater use of longer-stay car parks - possibly by increasing tariffs in short stay car parks and reducing tariffs in long stay car parks - and reviewing current season ticket and trader permit schemes to see if concessions could be offered to residents, local businesses and their employees to promote greater use of long stay car parks – but at no cost to the council.
Oddly, whilst the idea seems to be to drive the locals out of the town centre where possible, the reverse seems true for visitors, with the proposed provision of “sufficient” centrally located dedicated coach parking spaces to guarantee that coaches continue to visit the town.
And again, whilst any concessions to local people have to be cost neutral, the report says that there may be a need to consider incentives for coach companies.
“Any incentives that reduce parking charges would have an impact on the council’s overall parking income but may benefit businesses in the town.”
And whilst the need for dedicated parking for the disabled is mentioned several times, it is in tandem with considering the introduction of “alternative means of paying for parking for specific user groups who may find it difficult to use parking meters.”
In other words, forget about keeping free parking for blue badge holders, or introducing user friendly parking ticket dispensers – the idea seems to be to cobble together yet another back of a fag packet production to save money.
A few other snippets that caught our eye included a suggestion to introduce hand-held devices and printers to issue parking tickets.
This will cost the council about £1,000 a unit but "could be offset by an increase in the payment rate for ECNs (excess charge notices.)
Another plan to buy dedicated ticket processing software would cost around £5,000 plus £2,000 per year to operate “but will be offset by service efficiencies and an increased recovery rate for ECNs.” And on top of all this, it’s reckoned that the council will need to spend around £400,000 on car park refurbishment.
Yet again, it seems to be a case of using local drivers to pay through the nose and still return a huge profit for the council.
Interestingly, whilst the council appears to be a big fan of the Mary Portas High Street Review, it is not mentioned once in the report on parking strategy.
Could this be because the Portas Review identifies parking as one of the main factors that needs to change if high streets are to be successful – with number nine on the list of 28 recommendations proposing: “Local areas should implement free controlled parking schemes that work for their town centres and we should have a new parking league table.”
What?
And wave goodbye to all that lovely money?
Perish the thought.

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