Parking momentum

Some momentum is now gathering with the free shoppers parking idea:

http://www.macclesfield-express.co.uk/news/s/1118628_should_parking_be_free_after_three

I've been told that it's been put on the agenda for the next Conservative group meeting, although I know that some (ie, the Cabinet) are worried about the loss of parking revenue.

The stock line I'm being fed is that there is no evidence to prove that it's worth doing (received from officers and cabinet members). The advice that I have received from several people in the industry is that it's very difficult to assess the success of any measure, given that there are so many variables which effect shopper turnout. If you're not going to do anything that doesn't carry proof, then you could rule out many of the items in the recession report.

Regular readers will probably be a bit bored with the parking subject as it's one of my favourites. I covered here how Crewe & Nantwich Council trialled it before Cheshire East went live:
http://darrylbeckford.blogspot.com/2009/02/parkingagain.html

When I was told yesterday that there was no proof that it was successful I was shocked to hear that we'd not had information from this trial considered yet.

One final point with regards to charges. We don't want to remove charges for long term users, and so we'll still gain revenue from that. "Free after three" seems to be the most popular idea at the moment, and walking round the car parks at 3.30 will tell you that there's hardly anyone in them anyway. The same applies to Saturday morning's - there's plenty of spaces that need to be filled. One of the commenters on this blog didn't believe me last time I said this, and I was goaded into popping out with my camera:

http://darrylbeckford.blogspot.com/2009/02/try-finding-space-in-macc-town-centre.html

Let's hope we can make some progress with this.