Parking Wardens
After all the talk about how the council are getting tough on illegal parking in the town by employing a dozen or so wardens, it now seems that this may take several years to come into effect. Why should it take this long??
Meanwhile the police have announced that the community based bobbies are to be trained to issue parking tickets as part of their standard duties.
This begs the question has this all been a waste of time and effort.
One area that’s really bad for parking is just opposite the cemetery where the new medical center has opened. During the day, cars are parked both sides of the road and any deliveries to the center means they have to double park the delivery van in the middle of a main road.
Reason that I mention this is that I went for a beer in town last night and as I drove past there I noticed the big absence of parked cars. There were only six cars parked and each one was an old banger with a hand written for sale sign on it. Just round the corner, there were another three for sale. Seems a bit off for someone to use an already congested road as a virtual car showroom. Ok if you’re selling your own car but I reckon this person is running a business at everyone else’s inconvenience.
Dunno. It seems that providing your not running a fast food business or something that attracts the public, then planning is normally not objected to. Businesses get away with letting staff park all over the place. Just look out of your window at all the cars parked both sides of Newcut Lane.! Not enough parking spaces within the council depot so they all park along the road. Budget Rentacar seem to use the road as an overflow and that’s certainly not right.
I'm not that bothered about this despite having a few scary moments getting in and out from the office but I can tell you one place where staff parking makes the road really dangerous... The Citron and Nissan garages just at the bottom of the dual carriageway allow their staff to park on Lambs Lane. This makes it just wide enough to get one car down at a time but the big problem is that they often park right up to the ends so turning in from either end is dangerous. Just last week I saw two cars having to reverse back onto the main road because cars coming from the other direction were log jammed.
Think in instances like these, companies should try to find safe parking for their staff or tell them to use alternate means of transport.
Re: Parking Wardens
The trouble with most of the Governments initiatives to solve congestion and parking problems is that it's all stick and no carrot.
Perhaps a lot of the problems could be reduced if companies were given a tax incentive to provide free transport for employees. i.e. my father used to work in the construction industry at the ICI in Runcorn so his company gave him a van and he picked up about a dozen others in the Warrington area from outside or close to their homes and they all travelled to work together in one vehicle rather than twelve separate ones. I'm sure that in many cases companies, particularly those with more than a few emplyees, could hire coaches or minibuses to do something similar although I appreciate that it won't be practical for everyone. Possibly they could even give free or reduced fares to those who could make use of public transport but I expect the government will take the opposite view and try to tax such schemes as a benefit instead.
Re: Parking Wardens
Read in the Guardian this week that the parking wardens will now be hitting the streets next October! but if their timescales are anything like the bus timetables, then who knows when thet will show up! sometime never!
Bill
John Regular Poster
Posts: 62
(26/10/05 12:48 pm) Reply
Re: Parking Wardens
Don't have a false sense of security about there being no traffic wardens until October (presumably you meant next October Bill) because a friend of mine was nearly given a ticket by the Police in Stockton Heath and I've also seen the Police issue tickets near the Town Centre recently too.
Yes, I have heard of others getting tickets recently and your right, they can only be coming from the police.
Interesting point though, when this all stated, it was most clearly stated that it wasn't about making money but making our roads safer by cutting down on dangerous parking. What a load of bulls**t!
Six months down the line and the council are already complaining to the police that if they continue to issue tickets, then the council’s opportunity to profit will be reduced and it will not issue tickets at a loss. So much for this not being about money.
I'm not anti traffic warden or anti police, I just say our council should accept the fact that the vast majority of people use cars these days and they should, as our elected representatives, make provision for parking rather than constantly trying to penalize us.
Bill
John Regular Poster
Posts: 80
(13/11/05 6:49 pm) Reply
Re: Parking Wardens
Hi Bill, Re your comments about the council penalising us for parking when they're our elected representatives (and also your message to them on the re-cycling thread); why on earth should they take the slightest bit of notice of us as no matter how many times they kick us we still elect them in. If the council charged us for breathing some people would still vote for them as they always have done. Some people think political parties are like football teams (i.e. it doesn't matter who the best team is, they always support 'theirs' or the ones their parents did).
I supose I don't fit into this category having voted for all three main parties during my time depending on how I saw things at the time. Recently I've even taken a considered decission not to vote for any party when I felt that each party had some policy that I strongly dissagreed with.
What's need is a common sense party that throws away much of the old style us and them attitudes and concentrates on makeing things better for the contry as a whole.
Bill
John Regular Poster
Posts: 138
(13/3/06 2:19 pm) Reply
Re: Parking Wardens
I think what we need is a party that listens to and can promote the needs of each community. However we as the public sometimes have opposing views of what we would like and what's best so I can understand that it's difficult for our local councilors to know what's best. I may be cynacal but at the end of the day I think that the number of people who would vote for a monkey as long as it was wearing the right colour of rosette outnumber the thinking voters.
Perhaps we should not really vote for individuals or parties but for a range of issues instead and list them in order of priority and then someone, or even a computer, could best match these with the same issues prioritorized by the different parties. There would have to be no canvassing though, to ensure that no-one knew which parties prioritories were, so as not to influence your vote.
On line voting and a computer algorithm do decide the winner. Wouldn't like to be the one that has to write that code!
I think by and large, our political system does or should allow for common sense to prevail but I'm sure party allegence plays far too big a part in how our MP's vote.
Anyway back to parking. I see someones just got done for parking on an extended area of pavement which is normally used by a local car firm to display it's cars. The blokes logic was that if it's ok for the company to park it's cars there during the week then it should be ok to park there for a couple of hours on Sundays. Not so say the police which is total bull if you think about it.
Re: Parking Wardens
Not sure Dave, I read it in last weeks Guardian. It has to be somewhere near the football stadium though because that's where he was going.
I know two wrongs don't make a right but I think there is some logic to the blokes argument.
Re: Parking Wardens
Posibbly near volvo? Where all the cops get their cars serviced?
John Regular Poster
Posts: 155
(22/6/06 1:21 pm) Reply
Re: Parking Wardens
Quote:On line voting and a computer algorithm do decide the winner. Wouldn't like to be the one that has to write that code!
I'll write it Bill, although I might be tempted to build in some bias in favour of me, now how much do Prime Ministers earn and do I get to travel in the new planes that Tony's ordered ?
The story of the police booking the guy for parking is quite appropriate at the moment as it's currently in the news that there should be a more flexible approach to the problem.
My wife works at the Volvo dealership and parking is quite bad round there, she has to get to work quite early to be sure of a parking space. Fortunately I don't work in the centre of town as it must be quite difficult find somewhere to park all day or expensive to use the car parks. I think there should be a bit more flexibility especially whilst they've demolished the Leigh street car park and there are fewer legitimate spaces. I believe there is relatively cheap parking in John Street (off Winwick Street) on the old Rylands Vehicle site and also opposite near Kwik-Fit though.
What annoys me is the number of roads with double yellow lines where there is no real problem with parking. I think it's just the council trying to get us to pay more money in their car parks or to try and get us to use public transport.
If a road is wide enough to allow traffic through with parked cars and there is no congestion, obstruction or safety issues then there should be unlimited parking. If it is in a place where there is a lot of "competition" for parking then maybe there should be a reasonable time limit applied.
PARKING meters.
I pay enough to live in Warrington without paying to park in it.
John Regular Poster
Posts: 158
(23/6/06 12:40 pm) Reply
Re: Parking Wardens
Quote: pay enough to live in Warrington without paying to park in it.
My sentiments exactly Dave, I've never paid to park my car in Warrington. I rarely stay for more than an hour and can usually find a space in the 1 hour restriction zones to park.
I can understand there being a restricted zone though because if there were unlimited stay parking then the people who work in town would use them and force the short stay parkers into the car parks. Whether this would be right or not is another debate.
Parking Wardens
Why should it take this long?? 
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