New Car Parking Charges
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Posts
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You are right about people with odd shopping habits, I know of a few people who have stopped visiting the town centre because of the changes to Barclays Bank! They prefer go where there is a counter and real people to deal with their business.
I agree with Katia that many people are put off by high parking charges in Wrexham. Except to go to one of the supermarkets or retail parks which have free parking I never bring my car into Wrexham, which of course means that I do not make any major purchases in the town centre shops. I occasionally go to Mold on Market Days where the parking costs 40p for a couple of hours, and at times it is difficult to even find anywhere to park, and the town centre is convenient for the parking and not as spread out as Wrexham. Wrexham Town Centre and markets have been killed off, with few major stores in the centre itself. The high cost of parking will not help the remaining traders, and the council should look at car parking charges urgently and not look upon it as a cash cow.
Talking to fellow shop owners, it is clear that Katia is correct. The problem is that the Council may think it more important to raise necessary revenue than attract shoppers. Clearly, the Council would not be stupid enough to allow car park charge increases to generate a drop in revenue (which could well occur over time) but they might be willing to lose shoppers if it retains revenue for the Council coffers. This will then become a question of priorities and will make the charges a political matter. It will be interesting, for example, if a group of Councillors who are in favour of promoting Wrexham and its various hubs as a tourist destination, rebel against charges which clearly are damaging this approach.
I gather that quite a few traders are now looking at introducing a Car Parking reimbursement scheme similar to my own. This is working well for me and I may try and generate some sort of dialogue at the next Forum meeting
@wrexview 12814 wrote:
You are right about people with odd shopping habits, I know of a few people who have stopped visiting the town centre because of the changes to Barclays Bank! They prefer go where there is a counter and real people to deal with their business.
Quite right here and it is this marginal factor that we need to monitor. As you rightly show, there are many who prefer the personal touch whilst for others it will be the slight increase in cost. The businesses in the town have got to make a positive effort to attract the customers but the Council can help here.
@Katia 12813 wrote:
Is the town quieter because of the parking charges, probably at least in part, doesn’t help anyway.
We all know various people with seemingly odd shopping habits.
Some elderly folk with bus passes that live in surrounding villages travel into King Street using their bus passes, then catch a bus to Chester or Mold or even further to do their shopping, argument being things are less spread out once getting off the bus, plus its a day out. They prefer this to walking to Eagles Meadow for M&S etc, maybe the ShoppaHoppa was more useful than realised.
More often than not they treat themselves to a few pints and something to eat or at least teas/coffees. All good for shops and pubs and cafes in Chester, and the bus strip is paid by WAG for people to spend in England.
Maybe trips to destinations outside Wales shouldn’t be part of their bus pass, or maybe it all helps the bus companies keep fares down.Then there are ( usually ) younger people but oldies too that are lucky enough to have cars but seem to feel paying to park when shopping or visiting the cinema is outrageous. They will rather spend the money on fuel and visit the cinema at Cheshire Oaks with free parking, and to make the most of the trip perhaps do some shopping at M&S, ASDA and the outlet village plus have something to eat.
There will always be those that like a daytrip somewhere different but the planners that incorporated chargeable parking at Eagles Meadow reduced the attraction of a visit, even before considering several negative incidents of penalty tickets publicised which also deters people.
I haven’t a clue how these things are put together so far as incentives to locate, but surely Debenhams, M&S, the Odeon etc must have realised a chargeable car park puts them at a disadvantage, and the eating establishments even more so. A free car park should have been insisted upon.Even within the small group of people that I am aware of, there is no doubt Eagles Meadow and Wrexham town centre – is that the right order of importance these days – are both losing out because of the parking costs compared to other destinations.
On a sunny day for instance you can take the kids to Llandudno and park in the street for 90 minutes without charge, that pays for ice creams if nothing else. There are always plenty of shoppers milling about. You can’t compare Wrexham to Llandudno I suppose but everytime I walk around Wrexham town centre there are less and less shops, and less reasons to justify paying a high parking charge. Might as well just go to TESCO and ASDA instead.
WMBC should seriously think about attracting the shoppers that like to like to have a walk around, have a coffee with a cake and not just sit in the house ordering everything from Amazon !
This is the best post that I have seen on this forum, and I would imagine the majority of Wrexham people like me would not disagree with a single word, which begs the question, why can’t people in positions to do something about all Katias points do something to rectify the obvious problems in Wrexham..
Once the cinema and accompanying restaurants open in Broughton then people living North of the town will struggle to justify traveling South to Wrexham..
I popped up to Broughton the other day and noticed they’ve started work on their the new Cineworld and restaurant complex (not that you can miss the building works!)
A new bus hub is also going to go by the Tesco on Broughton.
As Broughton is already free parking, would be interesting to see if they did introduce charges when the complex is open. As obviously a place where you can shop / eat / watch films etc and park for free, is a very tempting offer! As is somewhere you can bus to and spend the day!
Time wise anyone having to cross the A483 to come into town would find Broughton more convenient. Strange how a little suburb of Chester (although actually in Flintshire) has been able to attract all the development when Wrexham is seeing the downturn.
We will go to Broughton for the cinema rather than town, parking will be free or significantly cheaper than Wrexham and there will be a better selection of places to eat.
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