News Roundup week ending 26 April

This week’s Haslemere Herald features a short election address from each of the five candidates standing for election as our County Councillor to succeed Councillor Steve Renshaw.

 

 

I have to say – what an uninspiring bunch!  It doesn’t help of course that they have each been given only a couple of column inches to express themselves, but only the UKIP and Labour candidates have anything of any substance to say about their beliefs, vision or policies, and I suspect those will not play with enough of our neighbours to get them elected.  Do I really want to know how many children they have or how many decades they have lived in the town?  (In some ways, the longer, the worse in my view).  I want to know what their qualifications are for the role, and what their vision for the town is.

Also in the Herald this week, the article below about the Haslemere Vision.

 

HV is holding its open day for residents, to see what the process is about and how they might help, this Saturday.  Note that they encourage us all to come along and get involved.  I would join in that call – HV, whether we like it or not, is going to have an influence over how our town is managed in the years to come.  Their project could fail because they misread the mood of residents and then lose the referendum which will be the final validation of their project.  Worse, it could succeed in pushing through a vision to which residents are by and large either hostile or indifferent, again because people have not participated and so alerted HV to where it is going wrong.

Or, it could open its arms to all views, supportive or dissident to its current direction, and so know what Haslemere people want before they learn the hard way.

The letters page this week has only one letter specfiically about the electon, below:

The Windows “snipping tool” couldn’t accommodate the entire letter in one go at decent scale, hence split into two which don’t quite match.

Now, I have some sympathy for David Wylde’s message, as far as Waverley goes.  Whichever party has control there, and it can only realistically be the Tories or the LibDems, it is really not healthy for them to have almost every seat, as the Tories currently do in Waverley.  Who wants to live in a one-party state?

The position in Surrey is not that extreme of course, but again it is healthier for democracy if the leading party, whichever that may be, is kept on its toes by a strong opposition.  For that reason I will not be voting for Mr Mulliner - although I am prepared to accept his assurances that he will work a little harder this time.  I would also not vote for an independent – a strong opposition demands some degree of collaboration and co-ordination among opposition councillors, so that implies a "slate", a political party, I’m afraid, but which one?  At a local level, I would also prefer our candidate not to be under the influence of the same shadowy figures who dominate the Town Council and various NGOs in the town.  Does that mean the choice is between Patricia Culligan and Peter Nicholson?  Well, if that doesn’t provide enough contrast for the popular choice, what can?

The Petworth Zebra, a creature once regarded as almost as mythical as the Surrey Puma, has in fact now had a number of reliable sightings.  It is there, crossing Petworth Road outside Noggs, cocking a snook at our mayor in the adjacent Town Hall and our worthy shopkeepers at Woodie & Morris.  It is not yet operational, however as it awaits connection of the power to light the "Belisha Beacons" on either kerb, which are a statutory requirement for a fully legal pedestrian crossing.

The crossing has a curious recent history.  The planning committee of Haslemere Town Council considered the proposal at its December 2012 meeting, where it is minuted, under item 150/12 Highway Issues, as follows:

Pedestrian safety – the committee had a lengthy discussion about SCC’s proposed pedestrian crossing on the Petworth Road, particularly in relation to the loss of parking bays.

Cllr King proposed that the committee support the construction of the crossing, Cllr Piper seconded. The motion was carried.

 

(I have italicised the text for quoting, but the bold comes from the document itself)

A mere two months later, the matter was back before the committee again.  It seems that HTC were a little rash in agreeing to the proposal (not that their agreement or objection makes much difference – they are not the planning authority or the highways authority anyway) before they had been delivered of the Sermon on the Mount.  Here, in the minutes of the February planning committee meeting, at item 19/13:

The Committee unanimously agreed for Cllr King to feedback these concerns to Cllr Renshaw at SCC, with a view of possibly delaying the process for further consultation to take place with those who are likely to be affected.

Curiously, many of the objections delivered in the sermon were in direct contrast to the recommendations made in an earlier sermon, back in 2008 in the “Haslemere Initiative” report prepared by the same preacher.  (Curiously, this document was available to download on the Waverley website only a few weeks ago, but is no longer there.....)

Also, I am reliably informed that the committee were not unanimous about the decision to refer, and that this challenge was delivered to the clerk before the minutes were made public.  Curiouser and curiouser!

Down Memory Lane

 

See below a flyer which was handed out to publicise the original pay & display parking proposals at the very beginning of last year, and a public meeting at the Haslemere Town Hall to protest them.

Now, a test to see if you have been paying attention:  what is the maximum charge envisaged under the Surrey CC proposals for a full day of parking?

• £11.50

•  £7

• £5?

The flyer does in fact point you to more information on Surrey’s website, but it mistypes the web address – deliberately?  How many people would actually take the trouble anyway?  I have looked on the relevant page and to my no great surprise the pay & display proposals are no longer there.
 

You can get to them though by reading the papers for theWaverley Local Committee meeting at which they were discussed.
 

Here, at Item 11, para 2.42 on page 9: “The proposed tariff for long term parking (5 hours or more) on residential roads around the station is £5 during the operational hours. This is shown as a medium tariff on the plan in Annex A. It is also proposed to charge £1 per hour for periods up to 5 hours. This figure derives from the fact that SWT charges £6 per day, in recognition of their premium location at the station and that Waverley Borough Council charges £4 per day, so the County Council would want to encourage better use of their off-street car parks.”
 

You will note the flyer’s emphasis on High Street, West Street, and Weyhill – in other words, shopping parking, not commuter parking.  As noted in para 2.14, on page 5: “The High Street, West Street, Shepherd’s Hill and Wey Hill have existing limited waiting bays fronting all of the shops and businesses, with a maximum waiting period of 1 hour. It is proposed to introduce on- street charging here, but with a free initial 30 minutes, to encourage better use of the car parks and improve the enforcement of the 1-hour bays.”
 

So, in fact, commuters would pay less than they would in the SWT car park (were they lucky enough to have been on the waiting list long enough to get a season ticket) and a little more than for the WBC car parks at Tanners Lane or Weydown Rd, the latter of which, I can attest, remains at least 25% unoccupied at least until the 8am Waterloo train is due while nearby streets have filled up, hence the desire to encourage their use.  Shoppers would not have to pay at all if they were simply “popping in” for a pint of milk or their copy of the Herald.

But the focus on those shopping streets in the flyer does in fact tell you quite a lot about the parking campaign.  It is largely about the retailers.  This also becomes apparent if you look at Mrs Barton’s “Haslemere First” Facebook page – photos of her poster in various shop windows, supportive comments by shop-owners, etc.  While admitting that I don’t spend my days cruising the streets of Haslemere, I have yet to see a single one of her posters on display anywhere else.

Retailers’ fears of the negative impact of parking charges on their business are well known, and loudly voiced, but they are not supported by evidence.  When SCC says in their report, at para 2.16, page 5: “This would help improve access for visitors and shoppers”,  they mean it, and they have evidence to support their claim, not least from the study published by the Transport Research Laboratory, “Parking Measures and Policies Research Review”.   They really aren't trying to stiff the retailers, they are trying to help them, even if they don't articulate this terribly well.

Whatever.  I had thrown at me recently, in a private email, the assertion that 4,000 signatures had been collected on a petition against the pay & display proposals, represented to me as more than the turnout in the 2009 Surrey Council election in Haslemere.  I have no reason to doubt the number of signatures, or that they exceeded the election turnout, but so what?  An official government election (national or local) is a professionally managed affair, regulated and invigilated to ensure fairness.  Fraud is certainly possible, but relatively rare, difficult to achieve and a criminal offence.  You know where you stand with state franchise elections.

Collecting a petition by accosting passers-by in the street is an entirely different affair.  How can we know how many times some people signed?  Who signed?  How many signatories were children, or pets?  How many signed as “D Duck” or “M Mouse”?  How many of the signatories actually lived in Haslemere, or even in Surrey, if you are going to draw comparisons to the local electoral roll?  You would have to obtain the original paper petition from Surrey and do your own review because it is unlikely that Surrey would have done this themselves.  In any case, how many people signed because they were accosted by someone with a clipboard and just wanted to get on with their business, didn’t really think about what they were being asked to sign, or perhaps even wanted to avoid a “scene” by refusing?

 

A more representative view on petitions would be the contemporaneous on-line petition on the Waverley website.  Here you actually have to go onto the site and sign up, just as you have to go to the polling station, or take your postal vote to the post box for a council or parliamentary election.  It got 12 signatures

 

 



News Roundup April 19

Nikki Barton, campaigning as an independent candidate for Surrey in the upcoming elections under the banner Haslemere First, has her own website, facebook page, and Twitter account.

On her website, a lady called Emer (presumably – Emer is a popular Irish girl’s name if not well known over here) challenges Mrs Barton on claims or promises  in her manifesto leaflet to be listening to  and engaging with her electorate.  To quote:

“In your manifesto leaflet you make much of engagement, and listening:

 “My priorities, if elected, would be:

 (a) to listen to the concerns and needs of the community
 (b) to give Haslemere the voice it deserves in Surrey, and
 (c) to stand up for the principle of open and meaningful  engagement between the people of Haslemere and local  government at all levels.

If elected, I would ensure open and full consultation took  place with all groups before decisions were made”

I fear this is not how you are perceived by many residents, for example those in Beech Road, Courts Hill Rd, Kings Rd, Longdene Rd, the great majority of whom would dispute the notion that you have listened to them at all.

Can we look forward to you turning over a new leaf?”

Mrs Barton’s response contains this sentence:  “I am certainly looking forward to finding ways for residents of all roads in Haslemere, not just the ones you list, to be listened to by Surrey.”

Now, I don’t know whether Emer lives in  one of the roads she mentions, or indeed is a Haslemere resident at all, however I suspect that if so she might feel that Surrey CC was listening just fine, it was Mrs Barton who wasn’t listening.  That, at least, is the charge she levels here.  Mrs Barton is certainly learning quickly the politician's art of misdirection - field a criticism of herself by implying that the failing lies with someone else.


The challenge is then taken up by others, and responses come from two of Mrs Barton's cohorts, Viv Williams (or Shorleson) and Aine Hall, her election agent. Mrs Williams for example replied: "So you are wrong! HPAG, of which I am proud to be supporter, did contact Beech Road....Furthermore, the HPAG was fully engaged in the Courts Hill Road process of which I was a participant. "

Mrs Hall added the following contribution: "Many Beech Road residents were concerned about the parking proposals for their road so they got in touch with Nikki Barton and me. We tried to help in several ways. I arranged for Town Councillor, Stephen Mulliner, to meet with Beech Road residents last year to see if there was a way to find a solution. (You are aware of this meeting as I read about it in your recent letter to the Haslemere Herald). I had several conversations with Nick Brown, Beech Road, and gave him information about setting up a residents’ association for Beech Road residents. I put him in touch with Nikki Barton"

Well, I canvassed a few residents of Beech, Courts Hill, and other roads involved in the ROP schemes, and they remember things differently. Sure, they recall being contacted, but they don't recall being listened to, in fact their impression was that as soon as the HPAG crowd understood that their correspondents took an opposing stance, all communication stopped. Some of them recall receiving messages from another of the HPAG cohort, telling them they were alone in their views, or that they didn't understand. As one such told me, speaking in the first instance about Mrs Williams,"she did not contact me personally (she left that job to [redacted] who demanded that I desist from our campaign as I had no understanding of the issue!). Unfortunately I deleted his email as I was furious at his patrician attitude."

The Beech Road activists, or the several I have managed to contact, also don't recall HPAG "helping" in any way once it became clear that close to a 100% majority of their neighbours, and the Hospital League of Friends, were in favour of a scheme which HPAG opposed. they are puzzled as to who the "many" residents were who were concerned, or who were "they" who got in touch with Nikki Bartonn - certainly not anyone I have spoken to, anyone that they in turn can identify.

The Haslemere Herald has another crop of letters this week about the elections and/or the parking question.  Councillor Mulliner puts up a spirited defence of his position following the last week’s letter challenging his attendance record – and I am sure that he is right to say that the work of a councillor is not confined to attending meetings.  It seems he plans to hang up his croquet mallet, and stand down from the Waverley council at the 2015 election, so he can devote more time to Surrey.  Curiously, he must have had his election for Surrey CC already, two weeks ahead of the main election day on May 2, and without many people noticing, judging by his sign-off in the Herald!

 

Various residents of Courts Hill Road have written in collectively to voice their support for Mrs Barton.   

 

 

 



Note that they refer to themselves as resident of Courts Hill Road, but the reality is that there are two Courts Hill Roads, East and West, a fact which Surrey CC recognised when it prepared parking proposals and sought consultation responses on them.  The undersigned are residents of Courts Hill Road East. 

You only have to walk the length of the road to see that the two halves are quite different:  East has a smaller number of larger houses with larger gardens and apparently larger areas of off-street parking (this last observable on Google Earth).  It typically has few or no cars parked along it.  West has smaller houses, closer together and with smaller land areas.  It typically fills with cars during the day, with only the white lining around drive entrances unoccupied.

So, the “Eastenders” were implacably opposed to restrictions on on-street parking – which does not affect them the way it does the West-enders.  As one of their number, Viv Williams/Shorleson did indeed contact other residents but there is no evidence that she listened to what they had to say in response, as the Westenders almost unanimously supported the parking restrictions and wrote in to the consultation to say so.

The Westenders nearly lost their battle though.  Surrey CC officers recommended to the local committee to withdraw the proposal due to the level of opposition – 71 objections.  The Westenders raised a new petition which they presented to the local committee in January, observing that the 29 supporters were in effect the 29 householders in that stretch of road, and most of the objectors were not even residents of either part of the road.  The committee overturned the officers’ recommendation and proceeded with the advertised proposal.

A second letter supporting Mrs Barton comes from Clive and Melanie Rollinson, owners of Woodie & Morris in Petworth Road.

Again, it misses Ian Sutch’s point:  residents of Beech Road and elsewhere may have seen contact from the Rollinson’s party, but there was nothing “two-way” about it – once they realised that the people they were contacting actually had different ideas, they broke off contact, apart from sending in the shocktroopers to tell them that they were wrong, or didn’t understand the issues, or were alone in their stance.

Finally, on the subject of letters, the Liberal Democrat candidate for the Haslemere council seat, Peter Nicholson, has written in.  That leaves only the Labour candidate for Haslemere:  perhaps he wrote to the Farnham Herald by mistake.

I do however find Mr Nicholson’s letter bizarre.  As a candidate for Surrey, you might imagine he would advance his case to be elected, write in support of LibDem policies, or their (quite creditable) record in local government in other authorities, or express his commitment and enthusiasm to serve the interests of the residents he seeks to represent.  Instead, he writes a strange obsdervation about unitary councils, the effect of which would be to abolish Surrey CC altogether!  The UKIP candidate, I observed last week, seemed mainly fixated on Brussels.

With such a lacklustre collection of candidates, one despairs about who to cast a vote for!

According to the Surrey Advertiser (via their on-line edition) there are rumours that Marks & Spencer may open a foodstore in Godalming when a suitable unit becomes available. “Suitable” means accessible for large delivery trucks bringing in goods from a distance. (Independent local shops source more goods locally, and receive multiple smaller deliveries from multiple sources, often in smaller vehicles.)

Commenting on concerns about the arrival of another multiple in the town, the president of Godalming Chamber of Commerce, David Taylor, made some slightly curious remarks. He said: “Most of the complaints and concerns I hear about high streets are from Farnham and Haslemere residents, not Godalming ones. There are many reasons for this. In Godalming, us traders are very good at talking to each other and supporting each other. And we also have 80% independent shops which I think makes trade more stable.”

News roundup, week ending 12 April

The Haslemere Herald like almost the entire national press, has been somewhat taken over this week by one particular piece of momentous news, so there is nothing to read about Haslemere on the front page this week.

There is however an article on page 5 of today’s edition, about an anonymous blogger, http://waverleymatters.com/ who has a good line in acerbic comment on the shenanigans at Waverley Borough Council’s offices at the Burys, Godalming.  I won’t attempt to display the article here, as the identical article also featured in last week’s edition of the Farnham Herald (no relation?) and can be read on this website.  The blogger also has an amusing line in doggerel, having adapted the old song “Oh dear, what can the matter be, three old ladies locked in a lavatory” to lampoon the WBC leadership.

I have to say that I think that if we have a problem with imperious or high-handed behaviour (allegedly) at The Burys, we only have ourselves to blame.  WBC elections on the last occasion returned a council composed entirely of Conservative candidates, bar the honourable exception of the excellent Diane James, who sadly seems to have lost her way lately.  Some of those conservative councillors are now deserting to become independents or join UKIP, and Farnham is talking about secession.  What I think would make more sense is for the electorate, next time round, to return far more non-Tories – independents, or other parties such as Lib-Dem.  This is not a criticism or Torydom in particular, but it is not healthy for anyone to live in a one-party state.

Perhaps we can similarly hope that Surrey County Council will be less dominated by Conservatives after 2 May, with more independents or members of the other principal parties – yes, even UKIP, if that is what residents actually want.  A vigorous opposition helps to ensure good government.

Returning to those Surrey elections, the Herald had a number of election-related letters this week. 

As I was having difficulty uploading photos of the items I have saved a pdf copy of the letters page here. (It can take a few seconds for the image to resolve to focus, so be patient).

The featured letter challenges Councillor Mulliner for seeking a new office which arguably conflicts with his existing two, and for taking on more responsibility when he doesn’t obviously discharge the ones he has as conscientiously as he might.  Ian Sutch of Beech Road writes to challenge Independent candidate Nikki Barton’s record for engagement and listening to residents.  Michael Edwards  apparently supports Nikki Barton on the basis that the Tory administrations are not looking after the interests of their residents when they levy “huge” 10p per hour increases in charges for one of Waverley’s four Haslemere car parks (the other three being unchanged).  I commented on this last week. 

 

Councillor Mulliner writes an election address which curiously has been labelled as a letter on the multi-storey car park.  Finally, our UKIP candidate writes to deliver her election manifesto which, to my eye, is rather wrapped up in Brussels.  Evidently she has not heard of the EU policy of “subsidiarity” which aims to push decisions down to the lowest appropriate level, but which has been substantially blocked over the years by British governments, of all political stripes.

 

All we need now is for the Labour and Lib-Dem candidates to write their addresses to the Herald – perhaps next week?

Finally, on the Herald, they print a correction to last week’s article on the proposals for housing at the old Syngenta site south of Fernhurst.  They misquoted the website address for submitting comments to the developers, via their estate agents Savills.  The correct address is http://sites.savills.com/fernhurstpark/en/page_67092.php - then click on “Document Library” at the top of the page.  You can read what I thought about this development here. However, it is a fair conclusion that this development, and a nearby development at the old King Edward VII hospital site, would in no way assist the relief of on-street parking congestion in Haslemere, as the developers will presumably have no obligation to address the public infrastructure issues created by their developments.

 

 

Much of Chichester will soon see the implementation of a 20mph limit on residential and commercial streets.  20 limits, unlike zones, don’t rely on traffic calming such as speed humps, so are considerably cheaper to implement and so can be implemented much more widely for the same cost.  They do, of course, rely entirely on compliance and police forces tend to be unco-operative about enforcing them, but nevertheless they have been shown to achieve meaningful reductions in the average and “85^th percentile” speeds (ie the speed below which 85% of traffic is moving), and consequently reductions in the frequency and severity of collisions.

I understand that although West Sussex County Council are now claiming credit for this development, they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to it and it was only when 75% of responses to a consultation were in support that they saw the writing on the wall and came on side.  (According to RAC research, a 4:1 majority in favour of 20 on residential streets which are not classified (A or B) roads is pretty much a national result).  It gives hope that Surrey CC will eventually concede the issue, if they see similar levels of support in Haslemere.

 

The Haslemere Society is holding its Spring meeting next Friday, April 19, at 7:30 pm in the Haslemere Hall.  There will be a presentation to commemorate the centenary of the death of the society’s founder, Robert Hunter, who with Octavia Hill was co-founder of the National Trust, and who founded the Haslemere Commons Preservation Society,  which subsequently became known as  the Haslemere Society, in 1884.

 

News roundup week ending 5 April

Well, it’s official:  Nikki Barton of the Haslemere Action Group against the parking proposals (HAG)  is standing, as an "Independent" for election as our Surrey county councillor on May 2.  Below are the report on the front page of this week’s Herald and her letter on the letters page.

In my lexicon “Independent” implies no alliance to any political party or trend.  I very much hope that Mrs Barton, should she be elected, will learn that as an elected representative on a formal governance body of the United Kingdom, she has a duty to represent all her “constituents”, those who did not vote for her as well as those who did.  Those who live in streets which have fought for parking controls as well as  those residents who have fought against.  As an elected official, she might find that her responsibilities are more onerous than simply shouting the odds at meetings of the Local Area Committee for Waverley.  I wish her a good campaign, although not a successful one.


Update You can see Mrs Barton’s Manifesto Leaflet on the haslemereparking.com website here. I am with her on the subject of cyclist and pedestrian safety, and I would also support "affordable parking solutions" only I somehow doubt I have the same take on what that term means - low-wage shopworkers who can only get to work by car is one thing, cheap parking for your Range Rover when you travel from Haslemere station is quite another.  She says that her first priority, if elected will be to listen.  Well, if she is elected, we should all hold her to that - it will be a first!

Update number 2 see below shapshot of Surrey's list of nominations for the Haslemere division.

Surrey County Council apparently issued formal letters yesterday to all the residents in streets due to have residents’ parking permit schemes, giving some further information.  The scheme is anticipated to be implemented in May/June, and will be managed by Guildford Borough Council as Surrey’s parking management contractor.  If you are a resident of one of these roads, you probably know most of the details already.
Haslemere Vision, the organisation formerly known as Haslemere Neighbourhood Planning Forum, then Haslemere Vision, then Haslemere & Villages Vision, and now just Haslemere Vision because they thought mentioning the villages was cumbersome but they promise they won’t forget about them again as they did in the past, honestly, has announced on Twitter that they have posted their minutes to date on their website, where they can be found here. http://haslemerevision.org.uk/downloads/meeting-minutes/

The minutes are not, frankly, terribly enlightening, covering as they do primarily the plans for their launch on 27 April, the photo competition etc.  Certainly there is no sign of any minutes or other description of what went on at their September open day session last year at which some 100 or more residents participated, and apparently about 75 agreed to contribute to the development of a local plan.  As they now talk about some 25 people being involved one has to wonder what happened to the other 50?  Perhaps their thoughts or ideas were not convenient to the organisers, like wanting parking controls and charges for commuters?

Anyway, the full list of participants in the Organising Committee can be read at the head of the most recent set of minutes.  I’ll leave you to form your own conclusions about how well some of its membership can be expected to take resident’s views into consideration if they don’t happen to chime with their own.

One of the few real gems from any of these minutes was this:  "It was agreed that it was appropriate for H&VV to set up a task group that would seek to develop a proposal for a 20 mph limit in the Town but it was emphasised that this should take into account the legitimate concerns of different roads/ areas of Haslemere, seek expert advice and, as far as possible, be evidence based. Well, I hope we can take this at face value, as such consideration was not evident from HAG’s parking objectors at any time in their campaign.

Haslemereparkingdotcom appears to have lost something else from its website.  In addition to the “open, sensible and democratic forum” self-description, it has also lost its list of recent readers’ comments on posts.  Perhaps so as not to draw too much attention to the fact that they delete those which they don’t like?  Having seen that I am not the only dissident who has managed to register with the site and – occasionally – get comments published (there are two or three others who evidently dissimulated and sneaked in under the radar) I am also not the only one to have comments refused, or published only to be deleted again later because they offend the sensibilities of those shy retiring residents’-parking objector types.

The Economist Magazine has an article about car parking charges in town centres, here. http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21574519-defence-hated-parking-charge-car-wars?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/car_wars  In summary, it reports on recent research which challenges the notion that parking charges are bad for town centres.  It is the availability, rather than the cost, of parking which impacts on town centre economic health.  Indeed parking charges may be beneficial to traders as they promote frequent turnover of spaces.

Waverley Borough Council has implemented, as expected, the price increases in the High Street (Waitrose) car park from 1 April.  (Actually, probably 2 April, as 1 April was Easter Monday).  The old tariff was 70p first hour, 80p second hour £1 p/h after that.  New tariff is 80p first hour, 80p second, £1.20 third and £1 p/h after that.

All other charges for Haslemere car parks are unchanged, with Chestnut Avenue being 70p an hour and Tanner’s Lane 50p for  the first two hours.
 

When the increase was announced, there was quite a lot of fuss about it from HAG.  Even now, although their commentary is quite muted, they major on the Waitrose increase without mentioning the lack of increases at the others.  Retailers – and those in Haslemere are no different – tend to think that an increase in car parking charges is bad for business, and the belief that the local authority imposes charges simply as a form of tax is widespread, propagated by certain elements in the press.

There is now a considerable body of academic research evidence available on the dynamics of car parking – availability and price – in cities all over the world.  London, Bristol, San Francisco, Seattle, Vienna and Graz in Austria, Amsterdam and Copenhagen to name but a few. These research reports are referenced in documents such as the Transport Research Laboratory’s 2010 report on “Parking Measures and Policies Research Review”, and the London Councils’ 2012 report “The relevance of parking in the success of urban centres”.  As far as I can tell, there is no research available which directly addresses the dynamics of parking in small towns, and no doubt people will say that studies involving large cities have no relevance to them.  However, there is also no evidence that city-level studies are not relevant to small towns such as Haslemere.

Key conclusions which can be drawn from all of these studies include:

·         It is not the cost of parking which affects a town centre’s vitality, but its availability.  By availability, they do not mean the total number of parking spaces, but the number of vacant spaces available to be occupied at any point in time

·         If anything, it is the vitality of a town centre – the quality and variety of its retail offerings – which drives the cost of parking, and not vice versa.  It is evident that Guildford, for example, can get away with higher prices for parking than Haslemere or Godalming, because it attracts more shoppers

·         Up to a third of all traffic congestion in a city arises from motorists cruising on the lookout for free on-street parking spaces.  (This is one finding which probably doesn’t really apply in Haslemere, except within the car parks themselves)

·         Pricing has a role to play in optimising the utilisation of available  parking spaces, by encouraging churn to free up spaces for the next visitor.

On this final point, to put it crudely, two visitors each staying one hour will spend more in the shops than one visitor staying for two hours.  Four visitors staying two hours each, or eight staying one hour, will spend a multiple of what is spent by one parking all day – indeed an all-day parker almost certainly didn’t come with shopping in mind.  That is why WBC sets its charges – possibly their model is not perfect but their aim is to discourage visitors from remaining parked for longer than a couple of hours because after that time their economic benefit to the local retailers plateaus out.   They are aiming to encourage churn.  That is presumably why Tanners Lane is charged at only 50p for two hours, but then jumps seven-fold for longer stays.  While it is apparently true that WBC makes a surplus on parking – after covering the costs of acquisition, financing, repair/maintenance, management and enforcement in its car parks – it is not explicitly motivated by profit, as a form of taxation, and it is not permitted to use any surplus beyond a narrow range of transport-related purposes.

That might lead you to conclude that they should charge less, or even not charge at all, for shorter periods, and indeed HAG/the chamber of trade has taken up the call of Eric Pickles for local authorities to permit free parking for the first half-hour.  But they, and he, are wrong about this.  The logic now reverses:  two visitors each staying for 30 minutes will spend less in the local shops than one visitor staying for an hour.  In a half-hour, all you can do, as the language used by Pickles and others clearly indicates, is “pop in” – for example to buy a pint of milk or a newspaper.  You can’t do a “proper shop” in such a short space of time.  A fast and focussed shopper can perhaps do a proper shop in one hour, and others certainly in two, but a half-hour, after deducting time to lock up, walk to the shops, stand in line at the checkout, walk back, search for your keys, load the car, gives barely any time for actual shopping, indeed an hours parking probably gives three times as long for shopping as a half-hour.  On that basis, the Surrey CC response to protests about metering on-street parking, ie to permit the first half-hour free, was almost certainly not a good thing from the chamber of trade’s point of view, did they but know it.

Why increase charges at High Street/Waitrose, but not the others?  The issue was its popularity.  You only have to go there on a typical day to see people cruising looking for someone to vacate a space, circulating around contra-flow when the only permitted flow is East-West to the exit by Proven Motors, conflicting with other drivers going the right way.  I am not aware of any disputes there turning ugly, but it is only a matter of time. 

Meanwhile, Chestnut Avenue usually has some spaces available at any time, and on a Saturday, when the commuters are not there, Tanner’s Lane is almost empty despite its much lower charges.  WBC’s policy is therefore to encourage, through charging, motorists not to loiter around the High St car park, but to go to one of the others first.