Post by Dave on Jun 8, 2013 7:45:02 GMT
There may be no point in building the new South Devon Link Road if Torbay Council continues to rip of every visitor to the Bay along with the people who actually live here. As someone who visits so many other towns in Devon and beyond, I know first hand just how expensive it is to park your car in Torbay. Mind you the problem is not just the cost of parking, we also suffer from very over zealous traffic wardens who are now employed by the council.
Many of these wardens are ex NCP staff; NCP won the contract to issue tickets in the Bay and operated for five years before the Council decided to do the job in house. The tickets issued jumped from around four thousand a year to well over thirty thousand, so a lot of our visitors left the Bay with a bad taste in their mouth and I have talked with many people who have told me Torbay is not a place they will be visiting again.
So many of those tickets were issued on Torquay seafront just after 4pm, the signs were not very clear and people parking there just did not realise that that section was a clearway from 4pm to 6pm. Three or four wardens would make their way there by 4pm and book up to forty cars a time every single afternoon.
Things got so bad that a local man (Mr Ward?) started putting up signs on the lampposts on the seafront, but he was soon stopped from doing so. Instead he got himself a sandwich board and spent the afternoons walking up and down the seafront warning all the car owners that they needed to move their cars by 4pm.
In the end the council put in street parking meters on Eastern Esplanade, Rock Walk and Torre Abbey Meadow and its one of the reasons you never see the seafront full of cars anymore. It was free to park in these areas after 6pm but now the council has decided to charge foe evening parking as well .It came into effect on May 16 and it formed part of the parking review which went to the Transport Working Party on January 31.
I’m sure it will not be too long before the council start charging for all evening street parking, here in Paignton most of the streets now have these on street parking meters along with the seafront that is closed off during the summer months, meaning the locals have to pay to park on the seafront during the winter months.
It’s no wonder then that town centres like Paignton are on the decline and locals are choosing to use out of town shopping centres like the Willows, or simply go to Exeter or Plymouth. Lyn tells me the only thing she misses about Plymouth is the shops they have there, we no longer even have a decent DIY store in Paignton, or anywhere to buy carpets and furniture etc.
While I will never feed those on street parking meters, Lyn goes down the town on a Tuesday and parks in Queens Road and always puts more on the ticket than she needs, but does so just in case she over runs. Last Tuesday she arrived at 11.15am and put three hours on the ticket, but by 11.30am a parking ticket had been put on her car. She went to the local office in Paignton with her ticket in hand, but it seems as she shut the door of the car the ticket may have turned over and was not displaying properly. It’s now gone to appeal but she has been warned she may well lose the appeal and that to me is utter madness when it’s clear she bought a ticket in the first place. There was a time when said tickets had a sticky bit you could pull off so the ticket could be stuck to the window, but not anymore and after putting the ticket on the dashboard, I suppose it’s very easy for it to flip over when the door of the car has been open.
Maybe as local tax payers they might let Lyn off, not that she committed any crime in the first place, we will have to wait and see, but I expect there are many who do not live here who would lose their appeals and have to pay the full amount. Common sense has gone out of the window and it’s all about making as much money as possible and they wonder why the town centres are empty.
It’s not just a Torbay problem; I would hate to live in a large city where things are far worse, but we depend on our visitors to boost the local economy and we need to welcome them and not make them end up wishing they never came to the Bay in the first place. Sands Road is the latest street to get on street parking meters; you hardly ever see a car parked there these days as driver’s op to park in the residential streets off Sands Road.
It won’t be long before these streets become permit holders parking only, what a great system that is, sell fifty permits when there might be only thirty car parking spaces and then let the people who live in the street fight it out.
So much more money being raised by parking charges and fines, yet sill more cut backs and one wonders just where all the money is going. You could get a deckchair on any of our seafronts from May until September, but not this year as due to cutbacks you can only hire one in July or August. The Bay is enjoying some fine weather at the moment, but don’t worry visitors you won’t be able to sit on the seafront unless you can find a space on a wall, but do enjoy our 20 grand Palm Tree on the Kerswell Roundabout on your way into the Bay.
Many of these wardens are ex NCP staff; NCP won the contract to issue tickets in the Bay and operated for five years before the Council decided to do the job in house. The tickets issued jumped from around four thousand a year to well over thirty thousand, so a lot of our visitors left the Bay with a bad taste in their mouth and I have talked with many people who have told me Torbay is not a place they will be visiting again.
So many of those tickets were issued on Torquay seafront just after 4pm, the signs were not very clear and people parking there just did not realise that that section was a clearway from 4pm to 6pm. Three or four wardens would make their way there by 4pm and book up to forty cars a time every single afternoon.
Things got so bad that a local man (Mr Ward?) started putting up signs on the lampposts on the seafront, but he was soon stopped from doing so. Instead he got himself a sandwich board and spent the afternoons walking up and down the seafront warning all the car owners that they needed to move their cars by 4pm.
In the end the council put in street parking meters on Eastern Esplanade, Rock Walk and Torre Abbey Meadow and its one of the reasons you never see the seafront full of cars anymore. It was free to park in these areas after 6pm but now the council has decided to charge foe evening parking as well .It came into effect on May 16 and it formed part of the parking review which went to the Transport Working Party on January 31.
I’m sure it will not be too long before the council start charging for all evening street parking, here in Paignton most of the streets now have these on street parking meters along with the seafront that is closed off during the summer months, meaning the locals have to pay to park on the seafront during the winter months.
It’s no wonder then that town centres like Paignton are on the decline and locals are choosing to use out of town shopping centres like the Willows, or simply go to Exeter or Plymouth. Lyn tells me the only thing she misses about Plymouth is the shops they have there, we no longer even have a decent DIY store in Paignton, or anywhere to buy carpets and furniture etc.
While I will never feed those on street parking meters, Lyn goes down the town on a Tuesday and parks in Queens Road and always puts more on the ticket than she needs, but does so just in case she over runs. Last Tuesday she arrived at 11.15am and put three hours on the ticket, but by 11.30am a parking ticket had been put on her car. She went to the local office in Paignton with her ticket in hand, but it seems as she shut the door of the car the ticket may have turned over and was not displaying properly. It’s now gone to appeal but she has been warned she may well lose the appeal and that to me is utter madness when it’s clear she bought a ticket in the first place. There was a time when said tickets had a sticky bit you could pull off so the ticket could be stuck to the window, but not anymore and after putting the ticket on the dashboard, I suppose it’s very easy for it to flip over when the door of the car has been open.
Maybe as local tax payers they might let Lyn off, not that she committed any crime in the first place, we will have to wait and see, but I expect there are many who do not live here who would lose their appeals and have to pay the full amount. Common sense has gone out of the window and it’s all about making as much money as possible and they wonder why the town centres are empty.
It’s not just a Torbay problem; I would hate to live in a large city where things are far worse, but we depend on our visitors to boost the local economy and we need to welcome them and not make them end up wishing they never came to the Bay in the first place. Sands Road is the latest street to get on street parking meters; you hardly ever see a car parked there these days as driver’s op to park in the residential streets off Sands Road.
It won’t be long before these streets become permit holders parking only, what a great system that is, sell fifty permits when there might be only thirty car parking spaces and then let the people who live in the street fight it out.
So much more money being raised by parking charges and fines, yet sill more cut backs and one wonders just where all the money is going. You could get a deckchair on any of our seafronts from May until September, but not this year as due to cutbacks you can only hire one in July or August. The Bay is enjoying some fine weather at the moment, but don’t worry visitors you won’t be able to sit on the seafront unless you can find a space on a wall, but do enjoy our 20 grand Palm Tree on the Kerswell Roundabout on your way into the Bay.
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