A leading business organisation has called on local councils to rethink parking prices and policies, accusing local authorities of strangling the life from town centres.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said that more and cheaper parking would be a lifeline for struggling town centres and would safeguard the future of independent traders.
“The death of the town centre is no exaggeration,” Steve Collie, the FSB’s national transport spokesman, said. “One of the main reasons for this is the parking policies of local authorities. If there is nowhere to park, or the cost is prohibitive, then shoppers will head to out of town centres where parking is free and plentiful.
“Small businesses can compete with larger firms if there is a level playing field. But there is no fairness in major companies receiving planning permission for large car parks while small firms are seeing vital parking facilities being removed in town centres.”
Advertisement
The FSB said that more than half of all small firms questioned in a recent survey said they were dissatisfied with local parking policies. Less than 10 per cent said they were happy with their council’s current arrangements.
“Local authorities see higher town centre parking fees as a good money-spinner,” Mr Collie said. “In the short-term it may well be, but when the town centre is empty because of these policies, there will be no revenue at all from parking.”
Westminster Council, the local authority in charge of much of central London’s West End, charges £5 an hour on its pay and display machines and has extended parking controls in most areas to all-day Saturday.
The council’s high parking charges have been criticised by central London retailers for deterring shoppers from visiting the West End. Retailers have also objected to the fact that most of the council’s pay and display machines only accept coins, leaving shoppers needing an impracticably large amount of change just to pay for a two-hour stay.
The FSB’s appeal comes just days after a survey by the RAC revealed that traffic speeds in central London had fallen sharply in the last year despite an extension to the congestion charge area and an increase in the cost of the daily charge from £5 to £8.
Advertisement
The survey found that the average speed on six key routes had fallen by from 12mph to 8mph - slower than horse and carts travelled in the capital more than a century ago.
The RAC blamed the extra delays on the increased number of “bendy buses” that London mayor Ken Livingston has introduced to replace the traditional Routemaster double deckers.
The bendy buses are 18 metres long and often find it difficult to navigate London’s many narrow roads. The RAC also said the increased number of cycle lanes, bus priority measures and changes to traffic light phasing may also have led to hold-ups.
Jo Valentine, the chief executive of business campaign group London First, told the Evening Standard: “We warned at the outset that extending the congestion charging zone westwards would be a waste of public money, the wrong solution for business and the wrong solution for residents.
“There are better ways to address the problem.”
Advertisement
Last year residents of Edinburgh voted overwhelmingly to reject plans to introduce a citywide congestion charge scheme, with three times as many people voting against rather than for the proposal.