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Monday, May 07, 2018

Part 2 - The wisdom of Highland Council's " Highland Parking with Purpose" document that is the blueprint for parking charges


Continuing our look at the Highland Council document that justifies and outlines the modus operandi of bring parking charges to our and other communities. See the first article here. Now we're in the recommendations on page 11. Here's one that pops up out of the page at us;

“Ensure integration of car park provision and charging regimes to encourage growth and investment in our tourist based economy”

Wow! Why didn't anyone think of that before, parking charges a wonderful way to give a boost to our local tourist based economy? Does anyone believe that? Do any of our councillors believe that?

Let's have another one: “Roll out the benefits of the new policy across the Highlands utilising
local committees and community partnerships”.

Surely this means, roll out the centralised policy of Glenurquhart Road and impose parking charges on Nairn? Whatever happened to localism?

Go on, one more, it's early yet: Work with national government and partner agencies such as Hi Trans and HIE to meet the challenges and maximise the opportunities of changes in behaviour.”

Force it through with the help of others? Maximise the opportunities of less people coming into the town centre? Changes in behaviours, more trips to retail outlets at Balmakeith then? Maximise the rateable values from there?

Just one more in this post, some more later perhaps after this observer has had a bit of a lie-down.

“The expansion in the number of car parks subject to charging will also need a review of payment collection procedures. The use of cashless payment systems and contactless payments should be considered at all locations as this will greatly enhance both usage monitoring and enhance cash collection procedures.”

So how much would that all cost then, along with other installation costs and enforcement? Can't see any figures in this document so far, perhaps that comes later?


6 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:28 PM

    Your last paragraph took the words right out of my mouth - how much will this all cost?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous9:09 PM

    What about the piece where they say that if they introduce charges near to Council Offices they will need to give council employees free tickets or increased salaries to cover the cost to them? So much for encouraging use of public transport.....

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  3. Can't find any mention of increased salary Anon - just a reference to discounted tickets on Page 24.

    "The Council should evaluate the implications of introducing car parking
    charges in locations adjacent to Council buildings and any associated impact
    on staff, including discussion with Trade Unions. Any charge could be made in
    exchange for an individual staff car park permit. Payment for these permits
    could be discounted to encourage car sharing. The introduction of a payment
    scheme for staff parking would encourage active travel and use of public
    transport."

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous10:09 PM

    "Business plans should include two hours of free high street and town centre parking."
    Extract from Bill Grimsey's 2013 report on reinvigorating UK town centres.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous4:19 PM

    wastemonster impose austerity on the Scottish Parliament.

    The Scottish Parliament have to reach an accomodation with councils over the funding they allocate to councils.

    N.B. The Scottish Parliament has cut taxes for those on or below £24K and raised it marginally for others above this threshold. Some of the proceeeds of which have been given to councils.

    Councils also have the ability to make cuts or raise the council charge.

    Public have a choice on wheteher to use their car or not or to pay for parking. Upside of this is less cars mean less congestion, less polution, fitter people,etc!

    But, root cause of car parking charges in Nairn is westminster imposed austerity!

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  6. I have been reading this Parking document for NRCC and notice that the only public consultation mentioned has been with the Citizens Panel - who are apparently a random group of 2600 volunteers on a mail list across Highland, a random sample of whom are apparently surveyed occasionally ie ' at least once a year'on various topics - Surveys quoted in this report where there was a single parking question go back to 2012 and 2010, which sounds a bit like scraping the barrel, and the only questions specified were about parking at Inverness Council HQ and Sunday Parking - I very much doubt that anyone asked anyone from anywhere in Highland never mind Nairn about the prospect of charging for Parking in Nairn - We need to pursue more information on what evidence they are basing the premise that there is 'public support' for parking charges in Nairn . Any enquiry to the Chair of the Redesign Board from another community group produced the response that the Council cannot provide a breakdown of who was asked what from Citizens Panel and whether they live in Nairn as the 'sample would be too small' That would suggest that the data they are basing decisions on here is less than robust....in fact highly dubious, and would not pass any definition of 'local consultation and engagement' Community empowerment it is not.

    ReplyDelete