Peoples Market Car Parking implosion
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It appears that the Stats are now actually out. Car Parking across Wrexham is generally on a par with last year but the long stay Car Parks have taken a considerable fall in uptake overall.
The official line from the Council is still simplistic and one argument that is being put out there is that Internet purchasing is causing a reduction of Car Park demand. Patently this is nonsense.
The stats reveal that punters are switching from long stay to short stay not no stay and, essentially, they have placed a ceiling on their Car Park outlays. All of this is supported by anecdotal evidence as well as hard fact. Each of the short stay Car Parks are trading above 2013 and all that we have succeeded in doing in our pricing regime is dissuading shoppers and tourists from making full use of the town.
Incidentally, the stats on the Peoples Market reveal a 36% drop in use. This is criminal and might help account for the carnage in the corner of Wrexham that the Car Park is in
Your last point abut 36% drop in car park use in the Peoples Market is very interesting considering the proposed Culture Trust is expected to use the car park income to keep it afloat.
The other one is it highlights the lack of commercial sense in the Council. If a business had an asset that did not have maximum up take and a comeditor was having such bad press they would go straight for the juggler and smash the price points to make the difference even more to capture the trade. 60% occupancy at a 10-20% reduction is better than 30% occupancy at a higher rate- basic maths shows that the Council could be on to a winner.
This argument could equally apply to Vinci and their price model..
If an auditor looked at either the Council or Vinci model at the moment then there would be questions being asked of the managers ability to maximise income from an asset.
There is one other dimension to this and that is the Council are worried about Eagles Meadow car park closing (or part) and the lost revenue that would come from the WG in the form of Business Rates.
I suggest everyone follows Ian Lucas stance of boycotting the Vinci – with so much spare capacity in other car parks in the area shoppers have alternative in close proximityThe whole matter of Car Parks, the Peoples Market and Cultural Hubs makes no sense at all Dylan.
For the last 5 years, the Council has claimed that it seeks to turn the affairs of the Peoples Market around. Expensive Consultants have been brought in to point the way forward. There is an outline plan on the table.
Meanwhile, Rents are higher than the private sector whilst Car Parking charges in the Peoples Market have shed 36% of Car Parkers in this working year.
Supermarkets charge zero for their Car Parks to attract punters, competitor towns do variations on this by going cheap.
Seemingly, the Council have got themselves in a complete intellectual mess about the Market concluding that the slide in viability which has been part caused by their Voodoo economics methodology can be reversed by a Cultural hub magic wand. The sustaining of this, it seems, will be linked to the Car Parking charges that are currently so damaging the footflow of that quarter of the town.
Could I just suggest that the powers that be go back to the drawing board, reduce the long term stay charges in the Peoples Market, restore the free stay period, look into the Renting philosophy within the Market and generally get their act together on this whole question.
@Alunh 15819 wrote:
The stats reveal that punters are switching from long stay to short stay not no stay and, essentially, they have placed a ceiling on their Car Park outlays. All of this is supported by anecdotal evidence as well as hard fact. Each of the short stay Car Parks are trading above 2013 and all that we have succeeded in doing in our pricing regime is dissuading shoppers and tourists from making full use of the town.
Routinely rushing back to their cars is the complete opposite of what shoppers should be motivated to do.
If people could relax about parking charges and penalty fines they will hopefully spend more time and money in the town – or at least turn up in the first place.
There are plenty of good ideas on here – lets hope something comes of it.
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