THE ASSOCIATION OF BRITISH DRIVERS
IN SCOTLAND
On 10th January, the Evening News asked Bruce Young to submit an Opinion piece on central Edinburgh parking. As submitted, it was:
Does City of Edinburgh Council’s parking policy go beyond grabbing as much cash as possible as quickly as possible?
The question is not facetious. Councillors elected to provide facilities and officials employed to organise and manage them consistently fail to meet Edinburgh’s parking needs. Is their heart just not in car parking? Or can’t councillors control their officials or even judge their competence?
Are our councillors and officials really that unfit?
CEC’s recent study on parking availability suggests so, as councillors don’t distinguish between high demand in George Street where a lot of people want to go to shop and low demand in Regent Road and Johnston Terrace, which are seldom anyone’s destination. Yet they included these off-centre streets to improve apparent parking availability.
Four kinds of driver try to park in the centre of Edinburgh – tourists, commuters, shoppers planning “a day at the shops” and those visiting only one or two shops. Only the last needs on-street parking for a quick “in and out” visit; the others would be better served by well-sited off-street car parking with payment on departure, removing the risk of a parking fine. CEC recognises this unmet demand, otherwise why periodically dust off and “promote” old plans for underground car parks? An automated car park is now planned under Chambers Street – but why only 100 spaces and why there when it could be built under the city streets where CEC’s study shows high demand? Or, as happens in Europe, why not build downward under squares and public gardens to provide central and unobtrusive high volume parking which would neither encroach onto commercial building space nor reduce amenity?
Is it that off-street parking produces no fine income?
In 2005/06 George Street produced £1.3 million parking fine income, the UK’s highest outside London.
It has since produced a good example of City Council ineptness. First, CEC boosted parking charges, dramatically reducing occupancy. To recover income, CEC doubled the period permitted for those willing to pay these charges, only to find that whilst occupancy increased, revenue fell worryingly – less frequent turnover of spaces meant fewer fines for overstays! The extended time let commuters park closer to their office, changing usage and reducing shops’ footfall.
Yet CEC was quick enough to recognise financial potential in the extension of controlled parking zones out into suburbia where few commuters and fewer shoppers parked, “forgetting” that increasing use of residential areas as informal park and rides simply demonstrates the inadequacy of city centre parking.
CEC seems to see car parking only in terms of both huge revenue and its very active strategy of social engineering, of “encouraging people out of their cars”, of making people who have cars just like those who do not – travelling by bus. Or tram.
CEC reports that nearly three-quarters of city centre shoppers travel by public transport. This ignores the fact that Central Edinburgh shopping footfall has reduced as many have moved their custom out of town and even to Glasgow where good car parking is available for stores throughout the city centre.
I believe the City Council’s aim is to drive drivers off the road and out of the city. Small wonder that Edinburgh employers now find staff unwilling to move to Edinburgh!
CEC is not incompetent – it’s just irresponsibly indulging itself. Edinburgh is the loser.
(550 words)
You can see the article actually published - http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/opinion/-Parking-mad-policies-only.3687262.jp
It attracted a number of interesting comments from various contributors!
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