Death of Wrexham Town Centre – Car Parking Charge Increases
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This is a bit like part 2 of dramatic thread headlines. However, I feel they are completely justified in the light of the utter stupidity and incompetence of the current Executive Board.
I’ve already seen the delightful & vicious comments by Facebook’s finest on the Wrexham.com article on this.
In short the consensus is – WE WILL NOT BLOODY PAY ANY MORE MONEY TO PARK IN WREXHAM TOWN CENTRE WHEN THERE’S NOTHING ON OFFER THERE
It’s almost like Laurel and Hardy are in charge of running the town. Another fine mess…
At present the strategy out of sheer pig headed stubbornness is for the council to keep doubling down on raising car parking fees and foolishly insisting on using them as revenue generators. When in reality feedback has clearly stated (and proof in the pudding on special event days) that people are only willing to use the car parks if they are free or were at a heavily discounted rate.
This of course is an absolute no brainer to most with any common sense because as we keep trying to hammer home INCREASED FOOTFALL equals increased economic turnover in town equals increased business viability and regeneration. Therefore, returning an increased level of business rates into Wrexham council’s coffers.
I personally only ever park in the council car parks when they are free because for the convenience and price other privately owned car parks are more conveniently positioned. There has to be an incentive for people to actually walk from the council car parks to the shops (cheap or free).
People will just keep continuing to shop at Broughton and Cheshire Oaks over Wrexham because parking is free – even if it costs them more in fuel. Everyone loves free parking.
As it stands Wrexham itself is in a death spiral – people are just going to start moving away – especially with the continued cuts over the next few years. It is almost like we are just going through the motions of watching a place in terminal decline where those left are arguing and playing a blame game over why we’ve ended up with the last parachute which has been bitten by moths.
3 week bins, ghost town centre, University that screws over locals, a fan owned football club that hates its disabled supporters, schools continuing to fail, hospital at breaking point.
At least everyone into vaping & spice can get hold of what they want.
I used to be very positive about this town but we currently have very little to show for it.
Wrexham Council say they are concerned about the decline of the retail high street shopping in Wrexham and spend money trying to generate footfall. They do not understand and have never understood the importance of car parking in that equation. To increase car parking charges at this time will mean more business closures in the town. Councillors need to consider this very carefully and at the same time look at the dwell time allowed in some car parks. When people come into the town we should encourage them to stay.
Get rid of pedestrianisation & open up the town. Its the only chance to survive. People will not pay to park, end of
If the councillors really want to save money then they should not have any involvement in any financial decision whatsoever. This would save millions. Councillors are inept at anything but wasting money.
They launch an expensive consultation on these changes that they know is just a box ticking exercise they will completely ignore anyway. Then when the changes are implemented and the footfall in the town drops even more, they will commission an independent report (at huge expense) to see how they can increase footfall. Then they will probably increase the parking charges even more to try and cover the cost of the report and so the cycle continues.
Wrexham borough council don’t need any consultants, they need to look at the likes of Mold and see how thriving
that is. Parking in all corners of the town with easy access to the shops and reasonably priced too.This council need to look at our town centre, T K Maxx a destination store ( people travel especially to visit it) moved to an out of town free parking shopping area. B and M another large store moved from Regent Street to the Central Retail Park again it has free parking. The Council must have an income from its car parks but it must be balanced against the reality of trade on the high street.
But we do have 9 new bin wagons coming .. plenty new vehicles in the WBC fleet I think?! How old are current bin wagons?
[quote quote=175148]But we do have 9 new bin wagons coming .. plenty new vehicles in the WBC fleet I think?! How old are current bin wagons?[/quote]
And thankfully there was money to spare recently to resurface the councillors’ car park.
Are councillors’ own parking charges increasing too?Parking fees don’t need to increase.what does need to stop is offering free parking for special events. Why should the ratepayers subsidize the people who attend these events. If you can afford to pay to enter the food festival and shop away, you can afford a couple of quid to park your car. At the moment people who work in the town and keep the county borough going are subsidising other people’s leisure time.
[quote quote=175157]Parking fees don’t need to increase what does need to stop is offering free parking for special events. Why should the ratepayers subsidize the people who attend these events. If you can afford to pay to enter the food festival and shop away, you can afford a couple of quid to park your car. At the moment people who work in the town and keep the county borough going are subsidising other people’s leisure time.[/quote]
That’s ridiculous – the majority of people working in the town are people who also benefit from free parking during their leisure time and go to these put on events. To create a them & us mentality over parking is absurd when you are getting people to fight themselves. I agree it’s a big ask to pay every day to park and pay when you have to work in town but then there’s a cost for most people to work – whether it’s paying commute money to travel farther afield than Wrexham, bus fare, train fare etc… very few people have 0 travel costs unless they work from home, cycle or walk into work.
Bottom line is they know making parking free will attract huge crowds and allow a larger number than usual traders gain a huge spike in income on these events – we usually see street food vendors, specialist market stall traders, amusement and fairground attractions and also town centre shops benefit from all the extra footfall. If the numbers just didn’t turn up because of a parking cost hurdle then they’d knock the event on the head at detriment to all. People would just travel further afield to Oswestry, Chester, Liverpool, Llangollen and take advantage of special events there instead.
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