"beamendsltd" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:4061c814e%
[email protected]...
> Speaking both as trader and customer - yes! It's one of those little
> gems of knowledge that businesses understand and planners don't.
> Parking outside will massively increase your business, moving
> it 200 yds can ruin it (particularly for "convenience" shops).
> As for digging the street up for six months........"Oh well, we
> did warn you" - like that's going to impress the bank manager.
Please give us credit Richard, we knew, we were specifically asked by the
traders to provide more parking for their customers near their shops, we
offered to do this by letting the same traders park only a minute's walk
away so their customers could indeed park in front of their shops. Their
attitude?, f**k off we're going to park our own cars infront of our own
shops all day so that our customers can't park there!, apparently we're
supposed to magically find more parking in a street not wide enough for
parking both sides, and with no way to widen it because it's lined with 200
year old shops with narow pavements. So the customers park on the pavement
across the road from the shop keepers cars, thus blocking the road to
through traffic.
> So take £5 per vehicle off the rates if it's such a small amount....
People don't realise that Parish and Borough Councils get not one penny from
business rates, even though it's the Borough who must collect them, so try
telling the thousands of people in this village why THEY should pay more on
their Parish precept when the shop keepers will get it back many times over.
> Funny how the finanical ball is *never* in the councils court, yet
> they expect businesses to produce money out if thin air.
That £5 would have been repaid 100 fold in extra business if people were
more able to park infront of those shops, as they would have been if the
shop owners weren't parked there all day.
Councils are constantly being expected to find money from thin air. In the
case of a Parish they get a fixed amount from the Borough, not negotiable,
and have to raise every extra penny from the Parish precept which is not
popular believe me. The charity rules mean that they are actively prevented
from applying for most of the available grants, only really the ones from
the Borough which don't amount to a lot really, instead they have to try and
get volunteers to form committees to do things and apply for grants
themselves. Very, very few people are prepared to do this, especially as
there's now so much government red tape involved.
> Sorry if I sound as though I'm having a go at you, it's not personal,
> I just get furious when councils (Staffordshire Moorlands in my case)
> decide, without a referrendum, that Leek is going to be a tourist
> town and anything non-touristy should bugger off to Stoke.
Which has no relevance to this Parish, or any other I know of around here,
we provided the land for the industrial estate next to the village that has
hundreds of full time jobs, we're working to get more land allocated to
allow it to expand as it's nearly full and there's clearly a demand. Yes
it's an argument for Scarborough Council who do plough what many (including
me) consider excessive amounts into seasonal employment, although they too
are working to open up a new expanded industrial area out of town. I
obviously can't comment on your Council.
> Some of us only have half an
> hour to pop to the shops - if there's no parking, we can't go.
Exactly, me included, which is why we were trying to help them park right in
front of the shops.
> Leek had a lovely big, free, car park - until the land was sold
> to Aldi.
Did the Council own the car park by any chance?, what's happening everywhere
is the Government is so constraining them that they have to sell off their
assets to balance the books. And no it's not a New Labour idea, Thatcher
started it and New Tor.. sorry Labour continued it.
Greg
