North Somerset Council has decided to implement proposals to charge for on-street parking in Weston-super-Mare. This decision was taken at the end of July and the scheme is due to come into force on 1st October.
The scheme calls for in the introduction of parking meters on 27 streets. The charges being imposed are intended to encourage short, rather than long stay parking:
- 20p for a 20 minutes
- £1.00 for one hour
- £2.40 for two hours
Residents will be offered parking permits for £31.00/year. To discourage multi-car ownership, a second permit will cost £62.00/year.
North Somerset Council’s Tony Lake said: “It will actually encourage people to come to shop in Weston …”
It is difficult to see how charging people to park would have that effect, when parking is free at the retail park on the edge of the town, and the Mall at Cribbs Causeway is only a short trip up the M5.
Mike Bell, leader of North Somerset Council’s opposition Liberal Democrat party, reacted by saying that, “Weston residents are being well and truly stitched up.” He added that he believes that the scheme was being introduced to, “… line Town Hall coffers, which many believe was the plan all along.”
The Liberal Democrats challenged the decision to implement the on-street parking scheme by calling it in, which meant that the scheme could not proceed until there had been further debate on it. However, North Somerset Council has decided to go ahead with the scheme anyway.
What we have here is a situation where:
- local people oppose the parking proposals
- local businesses oppose the parking proposals
- half the council opposes the parking proposals
…and yet North Somerset Council’s reaction to this is to proceed with the proposals and ignore any request for further debate on the issue.
There is no evidence to suggest that the restrictions being applied to on-street parking are in any way connected to the new 381-space car park on Carlton Street that forms part of the Dolphin Square redevelopment. And even though Mike Bell believes these parking charges are being introduced as a way to raise money from residents who will soon have no choice other than to buy an annual permit to park their cars outside their houses, there is no evidence to support that, either.
All we do know is that the scheme is going to make it more expensive for residents in Weston-super-Mare if they don’t have their own off-street parking. It could also result in the elderly or disabled not being able to park outside their own homes and facing a long walk to and from their cars. And anyone planning to visit anyone living in Weston-super-Mare town centre is going to struggle if they visit by car.
Weston-super-Mare does have a parking problem. But the reason for this is not that we have a lack of parking meters. It is because the council has failed to make adequate provision in terms off-street parking spaces, and the spaces that we have are hideously expensive.
And in any case, if we genuinely want to solve the problem of traffic and parking in Weston-super-Mare town centre, surely including a Park and Ride service as part of the improvements that about to be made to the motorway junction would have been a better idea than simply restricting the town centre parking spaces even further?
On-street parking charges for Weston-super-Mare?
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