Worrying about parking - part 1

The motor car gave us freedom to travel where and when we wanted, but it's also given us the stress of having to find somewhere to leave our autos whenever we get to our destination. I've always thought that paying for parking was a difficult thing to deal with. It's a great way to promote the use of other transport methods, but it can be seen as just plain fraud when there's no other option.

I traveled recently to nearby Manchester Airport (which is about 100 metres outside the Authority of which I'm a member) to pick up my wife. I was disgusted to find that whilst you could drop passengers off free of charge, in order to collect someone you had to enter the short stay carpark. The cost to drive in and out of this car park (for I didn't even need to stop the engine) was £2. Considering that there's no other option, and public transport from the Airport to Macclesfield is poor, I considered this daylight robbery.

I was even more incensed when I asked a parking attendant why we now had to pay to collect passengers. I was told this was because of terrorism. I can certainly understand the desire to have a collection area aware from the terminal after what happened at Glasgow airport, but it doesn't justify charging for it.

At Geneva airport you must use the short stay car park to collect passengers. Here, they only charge you if you stay longer than a short period (I think it's 15 minutes). At Salt Lake City there is a carpark on the outskirts of the airport where you can wait in your car until your passengers are ready. There are large signs which display when the flights are collecting their luggage, so you can go and collect your friends and relatives. The system works perfectly.

Poor services with shameless money making under a guise of national security is nothing but a national embarrassment.

The lie is so transparent the staff of the airport must surely be embarrassed, but the management is prepared to continue it in order to justify an additional unofficial tax on passengers.

They'll be charging for chairs in the departure lounge next.

£2 is not a significant amount of money, but it's the concept of paying that can be a disincentive. Even when a car park is cheap it is still a barrier from visiting somewhere. This has crystalised some important concepts in my mind for Macclesfield Town centre.

To be continued...