Graham, Tom and Ian

Your Lib Dem team for Cheadle West & Gatley Learn more

Councillors consult on Cheadle parking charges

by Lib Dem team on 7 January, 2016

The Lib Dem team are consulting on putting up long-stay parking charges in Cheadle village as one way of increasing the number of short-stay places and boosting trade for local shops.

As you know, parking in Cheadle village is not easy. Many local traders firmly believe that the problem is too many people parking all day, and that unless we increase long-stay charges to discourage all-day parking, some of the village shops may not survive for much longer. Currently parking is a flat 20p an hour. The proposal would be to keep that for short-stay but increase the charge to £5 or more for anyone staying more than 3-4 hours.

Of course, higher long-stay charges would have other effects. People who work in the village would have to pay more, find somewhere else to park, or use other ways to get into work (car share, bus, bike etc.). Residents who live close to the village centre might find more cars parking on their roads.

Increasing the long-stay parking charge is just one option we’re looking at. We have other plans which we hope will free up 50-60 spaces over the next year. We’re planning a public workshop in February so everyone can come along and help come up with a solution.

After a discussion on the Cheadle Facebook group, we ran a short opinion poll. Around 200 people voted and more than 70% supported increasing long stay charges (making it a lot more expensive to stay in the car park for more than 3 or 4 hours). Facebook may not be representative though.

What do you think – please let us know your views.

What do you think?

   18 Comments

18 Responses

  1. Joan Knowles says:

    I would like to raise my concern with the situation of parking in Cheadle car park. On numerous occasions during the week when I call in to Cheadle it is difficult to park, after doing several circuits and not being able to park I then go up the bypass to Sainsbury’s. I would much rather do the majority of my shopping in the local independent shops, and I believe one such shop has lost 30% of their business due to the situation. This cannot be good for the village and can only have a detrimental effect on the traders, it is a lovely village and would be such a shame if a solution cannot be found. Is there any truth that a large number of spaces have been allocated to The Alexander hospital?

    • Iain Roberts says:

      Hi Joan, thanks for your comments. No, spaces have not been allocated to the Alexandra Hospital. Some businesses do have permits, but they are all based in the village centre.

  2. joe mills-flynn says:

    what is happening with the car parking at Cheadle village. It is increasingly difficult to park there. I prefer to use the local shops, this situation is riduclous

  3. Ruth says:

    I would like to see a designated car parking area with a maximum of 3 hours (at 20p/hour).

    It’s certainly a dilemma: unknown is how many people park all day because they work in Cheadle or how many do so to get on a bus.

    To shop in Cheadle, many people need to be able to park in the car parks…parking on side streets does not allow for carrying shopping

    Incidentally, the same problem occurs in Cheadle Hulme where all day parkers prevent many people who want 1-3 hours for shopping, library, hairdressers etc from finding a space.

  4. Bruce says:

    When I shop in Cheadle I usually walk there but on the rare occasions I use the car I park on Wilmslow Road – bit of a walk but it’s free!
    Although it would not affect me I have no objections to the proposed long stay charge

  5. Les Leckie says:

    Up to three hours should define short stay parking. Any longer will enable people to park all morning then ‘top up’ for the afternoon at the meter during their lunch hour. This would defeat the hoped for increase in shoppers.

  6. toni says:

    spaces have def been allocated to the Alexander hospital it was reported to me by one of your councillors all the shops in the village are suffering and will probably go out of business if something isnt done soon. i have to go every time i want to do stuff in the village with my husband so that each one of us can sit in the car waiting whilst each one does what they have to do .. banking etc. its a ridiculous situation that local shoppers and the poor shop keepers find themselves in, if something isnt done soon there will be no Cheadle! you have to drive round each car park 15 times looking for spaces and then drive home without finding a space, please do something! at least free up some space in the side roads instead of having a permanent warden there waiting to pounce and book every single car. its utterly ridiculous

    • Iain Roberts says:

      Hi Toni,

      To be clear, the Alexandra Hospital has no parking permits in Cheadle village centre and as far as I know it never has had. There was some confusion on this issue about a year ago but it was quickly cleared up. There are always spaces where you can park legally if you’re willing and able to walk for a few minutes to to the village centre (e.g. Wilmslow Road and Oak Road) but we do want to free up more spaces for short-stay parking in the village centre, hence all this work.

      • toni says:

        In answer to your reply what on earth is the point in parking all that way away from the shops when you have shopping to do, i am not elderly but certainly am not able or willing to traipse halfway through cheadle with lots of bags of shopping the whole point of being able to park in the heart of the village is to use the local shops and then be able to take your shopping straight to the car not walk for a mile! perhaps its just easier not to use the local village and go to the big stores where you can park, and in answer to your comment about the Alexandra having car park spaces it was through your office that i was informed of such! so maybe you guys should just tell the facts as they are. i know for certain that our local lovely shops will not be there in the near future if this isn’t sorted maybe thats what you want after all so that you put more banks and charity shops there..the local shop keepers have told us time and time again that they are suffering because of the lack of parking places. please do try and hear what your local cheadle residents are telling you. there are no parking spaces and i for one am now not using the village for my shopping .. perhaps you should try and see it from our point of view!

        • Iain Roberts says:

          Hi Toni,

          As I hope is clear from this post and all the work we are doing, we are trying to do exactly what you’re asking and free up space for more short-stay parking in the village. It is a difficult problem though – if there was an easy fix that made everyone happy we would have done it!

          I can only keep on repeating the fact that the Alex does not have permits in the village. I appreciate that there was some confusion initially and that the false rumour has spread, but that doesn’t make the truth of the matter any less true.

  7. Roy says:

    Let’s have a full time traffic warden based in Cheadle to enforce parking restrictions which at the moment inconsiderate drivers are allowed to get away with,such as parking on ZigZags (£100fine and 3point office and a safety issue) parking in designated resident permit only areas,parking outside Costa coffee on double yellow lines, the list of infringements goes on and on. Once we start to enforce current regulations , we should then start to ensure that all future planning consent takes in to account any parking issues that might occur if for instance a fast food outlet wants to open up ,a call centre is proposed etc and refuse consent if the applicant cannot show that they have provided for any additional parking requirements of the proposed business. Let’s be proactive and stop being reactive.

  8. Phil Johnson says:

    The hospital proper does not have any spaces, but BMI Finance Dept have 33 spaces.
    Why not be a bit more informative with your replies?
    BMI Finance Dept adds nothing to Cheadle village.

  9. Alan Gent says:

    In the absence of any investment in smbc for tram provision (even though we pay a precept to gmpte) and with an unregulated bus service dominated by the monopoly of Stagecoach, would it not be possible to establish some service provided by MCT? This could be a circular service covering the main centres in the area, (Gatley, Cheadle, Cheadle Hulme, Bramhall, etc.) This could act as a commuter service between centres and allow shoppers to move easily between local centres.

  10. Fredrick Kenny says:

    BMI finance does add something to Cheadle, namely a significant number of jobs which is important particularly if you are trying to get one. Couple of thoughts . A multistory car park with nice shops. A free circular. Cheadle Gatley circular bus coupled with higher car park charges .

  11. June Westley says:

    An improvement to the bus services into and out of Cheadle could help a lot with parking and traffic trying to get out of And through Cheadle.

  12. Margaret Cummins says:

    I have nothing against BMi Finance being located in Cheadle, but the parking arrangements should not be changed just to accommodate them. Also, can I point out that the
    parking system worked fairly well previously, so why not just return to it as soon as possible, before our local shops go out of business. Perhaps that’s enough for now except that I agree with the point about cars dumping themselves close to Costa but do not expect anything to be done about it as i have repeatedly complained about the Car Showroom near Cheadle Green blocking the pavement, to no effect.

  13. John says:

    Parking for max 3 hours at 20p/hour in Cheadle sounds reasonable to me. I live in Gatley – we lost our fresh veg shops, fresh fish shop and NatWest bank so Cheadle is the nearest now for those. Hence i buy more in Cheadle, to Gatley’s loss, and that will continue unless more support is given to Gatley.

  14. J.Hall says:

    Recently located the great shopping experience in Cheadle where the range of shops are unique in such a High Street.
    I have travelled around Greater Manchester over many years covering Bury,Ashton,Leigh Nantwich,Stockport,
    Glossop etc for shopping just to name a few, but Cheadle has already great potential should those Administrators create permanent adequate Car Parking facilities.
    On four recent occasions at least 1 hour plus was spent touring the designated car parks for a space.

    Up to 3 hours should cover 90% of shoppers needs
    however Cheadle will attract all day parking based on existing charges which will destroy commercial shop premises and the jobs it provides.
    I suggest the Councillors and Planning Staff take a tour around Greater Manchester and although parking caters fairly for most shoppers needs, the charges have been
    arranged to curtail all day parking.
    Please therefore support your local business as a number one priority and let shoppers from outside Cheadle also contribute to its commercial growth.

Leave a Reply to toni

You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>