WARRINGTON Council has hit back at “a vocal minority of critics” of their controversial parking strategy, which includes parking fees in the south of the borough.
Cllr Linda Dirir, (pictured right) the council’s executive board member for highways, said:“The Parking Strategy for Warrington was approved at the June 2013 executive board meeting and we believe that the strategy is the right one for the borough as a whole.”
Meanwhile in response to the “Vocal minority of critics” the council says it has managed to cut its overall deficit within parking services by £125,000 between the 2010/11 and 2011/12 financial years, helping to ease pressure on council services during a time of government funding cuts and resulting pressure on essential council services. Parking services as a whole still made a deficit of £107,000 during 2011/2012.
The council also points out that a recent BBC survey of all 359 local councils showed Warrington as 348th out of 359 – i.e. 12th from the bottom – in the list of councils making money from car parking.
Cllr Dirir added: “Media reports have sensationalised the number of parking fines at The Forge car park in Stockton Heath – without pointing out that The Forge is Warrington’s largest surface level car park, so it’s not surprising that it would have the largest number of fines.
“It’s also worth noting that the number of fines amounts to less than 1% of the total number of parking visits.
“And the total number of penalty charge notices overall, counting on- and off-street parking in Warrington as a whole, is our lowest figure for four years.”
Cllr Dirir added: “According to a local survey, almost 70% of respondents agree with the council that 30p is a perfectly fair and reasonable charge for up to two hours’ parking.
“The majority of the Parking Executive Board Task Group that was set up specifically to look at the Parking Strategy for Warrington agreed that as a whole, our parking services should aim to break even. This means that any surplus from car parks should help to pay for other areas of the service that are non-profit making, such as on-street enforcement, non-profit making car parks and residents’ parking zones.”
More than 5,000 people have signed a petition calling for two hours free parking to be re-introduced at pay and display car aprks in Lymm and Stockton Heath.
Council says parking strategy is working!
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Gary Skentelbery
Experienced journalist for more than 40 years. Managing Director of magazine publishing group with three in-house titles and on-line daily newspaper for Warrington. Experienced writer, photographer, PR consultant and media expert having written for local, regional and national newspapers. Specialties: PR, media, social networking, photographer, networking, advertising, sales, media crisis management. Chair of Warrington Healthwatch Director Warrington Chamber of Commerce Patron Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Foundation for Peace. Trustee Warrington Disability Partnership. Former Chairman of Warrington Town FC.
28 Comments
The combined population of Lymm and Stockton Heath is around 17,000, so a petition of 5,000 is a bit more than a ‘vocal minority’. Add in the fact the Medical Centre and local businesses are saying it is harming them, that this car park was making a surplus anyway so the deficit was being generated elsewhere and it seems amazing that this councillor cannot see the problem. We may as well give up trying to get councillors to listen to local people and businesses if we have people like this whose entire mentality is to make decisions with no regard for anything or anybody and to tell everybody to ‘pay up and shut up’.
Does anybody know if Councillor Dirir is keen on introducing more restrictions and greater presence of wardens in Penketh?
Might as well just cut and paste this from the other thread; You would make an excellent councillor with your pompous and patronizing attitude. Why don’t you give it a go……………………or would you rather just stay in the background and moan about everything? the latter I would guess. At least the ‘comments’ section on here and the WG web site give you a purpose in life.
greyman says ‘The combined population of Lymm and Stockton Heath is around 17,000, so a petition of 5,000 is a bit more than a ‘vocal minority’. He is assuming that the 5,000 were all residents of Lymm and Stockton Heath. Well I can tell him he’s wrong. They weren’t.
greyman says ‘this car park was making a surplus’. Give us your figures to prove it. Don’t refer us to some website. Put up or shut up.
What impertinence of the Council to dismiss more than 5000 residents and 80 traders as “a vocal minority”! The opposition to what Labour is doing is overwhelming in south Warrington, because what is happening is grossly unfair. People in south Warrington are being expected to pay for free car parks elsewhere, free residents’ parking zones and subsidised Council staff parking.
Wait for it, they will soon be saying we’re conspiracy theorists. No explanation on the lillegality of it either…that too sounds familiar
I go into Stockton health daily to bank company cheques, normally in and out in 20 minutes and my company doesn’t refund the parking charges…. I guess that it’s street parking from now on!!
The council’s own figures show it. Take it up with them.
And you, apparently
Let’s assume for a minute I agree with you. What do you say we suggest that Councillor Dirir introduces the same restrictions and warden presence for the shops and medical centre in Penketh? If she thinks it’s such a marvellous idea for the whole of Warrington, she shouldn’t have a problem introducing it for people who might kick her out at the next election.
pot – kettle……………………….
Er……aren’t you part of the council? I reiterate my comment in the earlier thread about the ConDem alliance cutting the funding to local authorities, are you happy with this from your party?
There is no council owned car park in Penketh. What you talking about?
Well, let’s just extend it to all council owned car parks throughout the Borough then. Not forgetting making a profit from residents on-street parking as well as a profit from the council’s own staff parking. Or would that cost too many votes to make it ‘the right strategy for the borough as a whole’?
As the councillor for the area why are’nt you doing something about cars blocking Fairfield Rd and Grappenhall Rd thats where the real problems in Stockton Heath are. Or don’t you go down these arterial Roads
So the rational response is to do something that is illegal, not consistent with what happens in other areas and which you are told is harming the area by thousands of residents, 80 local businesses, a Medical Centre, the local MP and the Parish Council and so therefore runs counter to a number of your own strategic objectives? Not only that, you can tell from your own experience what happens when you make it a problem for people to park. They clear off to somewhere it isn’t a problem.
Why won’t the council answer these oft repeated questions:
1. Why don’t they charge for the council-owned car park at Culcheth? I believe there is one at Latchford too?
2. Why isn’t there a free or nominal charge for the person who only wants to stop for a few minutes?
3 Why is on-street parking in the town centre free?
4 Why, if the current parking service loses money, not scrap it and replace it with a small in-house team which would still be a deterrent to all-day parkers and would probably issue enough tickets to cover their own wages?
5 If the policy is to discourage car usage, why not say so?
A lot is being made – mainly by Lib Dem councillors – that the council doesn’t charge to park in the car parks it owns in the north. The reasons for that are obvious. The car park in Latchford is too small to justify the expense of managing it. The one at Culcheth is near to a free private car park. And as for the rest, they are either so far out of the way or in such poor condition that the council would have to pay me to park on them.
Perhaps the drivers parking on these roads would use the car park if the old pricing rates were brought back!
Rubbish! The Latchford car park is approximately the same size as the Pepper Street car park at Lymm and bigger than the Henry Street car park. None of Warrington’s car parks are “managed” – the only thing you have said that is true is that they are in such poor condition they should be paying us to use them.
The free private car park at Culcheth is frequently full so that is no excuse for not imposing a charge on the council-owned one.
Perhaps the council is worried the Warrington North MP might object to paying to park on it?
No I am just a person who observes . the general public are sick to death of being used for political gains
Could I point out the fact that a lot of people, including myself, go to the Trafford Centre to shop these days. Convenient, no parking fees, same shops as Warrington. The only time I go to Warrington now is to visit the market, and that is going downhill!
Leave your car at home and use public transport, or do a bit of walking , I believe its good for your health these days
So Brian let’s get this clear are you calling for all council car parks to have parking charges across Warrington and for all staff to have money deducted from their pay packets (or a similar method) to pay for their parking at council owned premises like New Town House etc?
Wrong! The Latchford car park (30 spaces) has half as many spaces as Pepper Street, Lymm and to boot is not part of a connected series of car parks with total of 160 spaces. Income from Latchford would not justify the cost of ticket machines and management.
Forget what Brian thinks. Are you suggesting that the council should work against the best interests of local businesses and residents but not in wards with a Labour councillor. Because frankly that is what Linda Dirir is promoting here. Not only is it illegal for the council to use car parking as a revenue generator but this appears to be a form of gerrymandering.
Well I won't argue with you because I haven't counted the spaces. On the assumption that you haven't either you must be connected with the council to have these figures to hand, which means you are not entirely impartial in this debate. But if you are right and the income from Latchford would not justify the cost of a ticket machine then Pepper Street (which according to you is just twice the size of Latchford) does not justify the cost of TWO ticket machines. Yet it has got them!
The Lymm car parks may be within walking distance of each other, but they are certainly not connected – certainly Pepper Street isn't. And by your reckoning, Henry Street doesn't justify a ticket machine, particularly as it is closed one day a week for the market.
As to this repeated phrase "managed" car parks. None of them are managed. A managed car park is one with an attendant providing some security for car owners – not one where car owners live in fear of the attendants showing up!
All Warrington's car parks should be free – then there would be no need for a parking service running at a loss. In fact, there would be no need for a parking service.
And then all the supernumerary parking wardens could concentrate their efforts on the on street parking across the borough. Judging by the number of complainants, this would raise quite some revenue.
I have used Warrington post office twice in the last month for the first time in years…..I was wondering where I could find a free car park that the south want so badly….. when I couldnt find one I then wondered if there was one for just 30p or even 50p…… No…??? guess what i stuck my car on wilkies paid a quid for an hours parking and was back in 15 minutes…….its called a going rate maybe some people just arent in the real world……. maybe 5,000 people arent aware of real issues going on in the Town if it wasnt so sad it would actually be quite funny……