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by Lib Dem team on 17 September, 2011
Stockport Council has launched a three-month consultation on parking across the Borough.
You can now see all the documentation and complete the online questionnaire here.
Do we have the right car parks in the right places? How does the growth of private car parks in the Town Centre (e.g. in the Peel Centre, Sainsbury’s and ASDA) affect things? Is the pricing structure right? What about on-street parking, residents’ parking, disabled parking, cycle parking and parking enforcement?
The Council is being up front about the need to keep money from car parking coming in. The money from car parking not only covers the cost of running the car parks themselves but also contributes to repairing our roads and pavements (and Government funding has always been based on the assumption that this is the case). We don’t want to cut back on much-needed road repairs, so changes to car parking need to at least end up bringing in as much money as we’re getting now.
Here are all the documents, but don’t feel you have to read them all! They’ve been split out so if your interest is Town Centre car parking, you can miss the sections on local & district centres and enforcement, for example.
Please have your say by completing the questionnaire online – which includes space for you to put any suggestions you have, as well as saying what you think of the Council’s ideas.
Stockport Parking Strategy Consultation Questions Hardcopy 16-09-11
Stockport Draft Parking Strategy
Appendix 1 Stockport Draft Town Centre Parking Strategy
Appendix 3 Stockport Draft Residential Parking Strategy
Appendix 4 Stockport Draft Parking Enforcment
Appendix 6 Terms and References
7 Comments
I do find some of the parking fees expensive. e.g. this week I parked on Hillgate and it was 90p for one hour. Thats a bit steep – and so is Hillgate! for an out of the centre spot.
Recently took my disabled mother to look for a fridge at the Peel Centre and was told that even though we were parking in a disabled bay charges were due. Just got back in the car and went to Ashton. Will not be going to Stockport again – come on lets have free parking to encourage shopping, Stockport centre is like a ghost town
Hi Phil,
Unfortunately, the Peel Centre is one we have no control over, as it’s a private car park. There are places you can park for free (e.g. Sainsbury’s car park), and of course anyone with a blue disabled badge can park on double yellow lines for up to three hours for free (as long as they’re not blocking the road or anything like that).
I’m glad to say that Stockport has got much busier recently, with tens of thousands more people coming to shop in the town.
The big challenge with making car parking free is that someone still has to pay – the car parks need to be maintained. We would need to identify somewhere else for that money to come from.
Iain
I understand your point Iain but when you are shopping for non food items I am afraid that parking in Stockport is still in the 1970s. You have John Lewis, Trafford Centre, Handforth Dean etc all with free convenient parking ( not a hike away). As I mentioned above I went to Ashton for my mother’s fridge at a shop with free parking 30 seconds from the door.
I had a freind up recently who commented that Stockport ‘looked tired’ unfortunately I must agree
That’s true, and the question of course is who should pay.
At the Trafford Centre etc. the retailers pay – they provide the car parking & they manage it.
In our case, council taxpayers pay, which is why you’ll be hard-pressed to find any town of any size in the country with free parking in the town centre.
Seeing as Ashton has been mentioned, one of the things I like there is that the Council donates the surplus income from several car parks direct to local charities.
Even if I know I will only be a few minutes, I never regret paying £0.30p in Cheadle – and knowing that I have 2 hours for that, if I meet a friend and go for coffee, or just browse the shops, all the better for Cheadle. Altrincham is a ghost town as they killed off the visitor parking with mad high prices and I think it’s the same for Stockport town centre. We used to trade from Little Underbank and the car park used to be bursting at week ends. Now you can choose to park almost anywhere, it’s so empty. Hopefully Primark may change that.
I also found it galling to pay £0.90 for just s short stay on Petersgate – as Mr Gent says, it’s not even in the centre.
Make it a big enough bargain and people will want it. Draw them in with a very cheap 2 hours, and then hike it for the longer stays.