Forward thinking Car Parks philosophy

Dave Whatehead has pointed out that other councils like Wrexham have a far more sensible approach to parking charges.

 Here's the link

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-14809984

And bloody well time too

A miniscule amount of intelligence has emerged from the controlling Lib. Deb. management on the subject of Ulverston Car Parks.

And I imagine Cllr Willis will be expecting us to be grateful.

Not on your life. The controlling Lib. Dem. SLDC councillors have been sitting on the Stockbridge Lane Car Park issue for literally years - probably five.

It's a sign of their disastrous financial management that our car parking in Ulverston is in such a mess.

It's also a reflection of our inept Ulverston Councillors that they got away with this situation for all this time.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that Multi Cllr James Airey ( until recently Town, District and County Cllr  with his wife a District Councillor too, power power power) will be claiming the credit being a close runner up to out of town Cll Willis for allowing common sense to struggle to the surface of this mire filled pond.

I was at the SLDC meeting in Kendal eighteen months ago where council charges were discussed  and far from showing the fire that Cllr Tom Harvey from Grange can breath,  James like a pet poodle, gently nuzzled up to the powerful arrogant Kendal Lib. Dem. councillors and looked up lovingly into their eyes and whined "Please, please. Couldn't your most worshipful and illustrious important people be good enough to smile more kindly on us very deserving Ulverston folk. Please please, pretty please."

 Not exactly his words maybe, but you get the drift. Cllr Hodgson was a bit gruffer and Cllr Jenkinson was her polite affable ladylike self with a poorly put together argument based on Lancashire charges.

By contrast Grange Councillor Tom Harvey, on another issue at that meeting, came across as a German trained Doberman and had to be restrained. He was persuaded to be quiet by a deal being struck off-stage away from the prying eyes of the press.

It's time for some rational but emotional, fighting Cllrs to stand up and represent us - and who do we have stepping forward but well meaning but hardly effective, Cllr Helen Irving.

At the Town Council level Cllr Norman Bishop-Rowe can't been seen to be cooperating with members of the public and for a long time hid the fact that the Stockbridge Lane car park income was only the paltry sum of £4,000 per year  which represents I seem to remember a measly 2p /hour per car park space.

It's unbelievable how much ammunition that our Cllrs are hoarding in their precious briefcases instead of loading it into the Sten guns they should be aiming and firing at the controlling SLDC management. What is it ? It costs SLDC £400 / per week to operate each loo under their control?

They spend months digging up the really good cobbles in Market Street ( that don't need touching) and leave us with the shambolic ones further down the street. Leaving an Aimey foreman who is doing the work to describe the actions of Cumbria County Council as crazy.

Just to remind you:-

There are some new kids on the block and let's hope they can string two punchy words together and fight the Ulverston Cause more effectively than those in the past.

Ulverston is Special - SLDC Car Parking Charges

I noticed this when in London on Thursday:

Greening's warning

Justine Greening, the new Transport Secretary, has been extraordinarily forthright in her views on Westminster council's plans for off-peak parking charges. Westminster is, she says, trying "to put some extra money in their coffers". Using parking charges to raise general revenue is against government guidelines and could be challenged in court. It would be astonishing for a Tory council to ignore the views of the Conservative cabinet member with major responsibilities in this area. The proposal is politically contentious as well as economically disastrous: the council should back down.

( See second item on the Evening Standard Editor's page )

We in Ulverston are fedup with the attitude of Kendal SLDC towards our use of our carparks.

Of particular interest is :

"Using parking charges to raise general revenue is against government guidelines and could be challenged in court"

On what grounds can this be challenged in Court? 

Can't we do it here? 

It is clear that other business leaders are also very unhappy with their council's kneejerk reaction to raising money:

Here in Wiltshire

Can we not pool information on how to fight for our car parks.

Dangereous parking

On Tuesday 28 June at 20:06

Having stopped and pointed out to the driver that I thought he was parking dangerously, he ignored me and continued chatting to his friend.

I have therefore passed this photograph on to the police hoping that they will follow it up and caution him.

New initiative

Seeing the sad state of our Market in town, I've resolved to do what I can to bring the management of our market back into the hands of local people. At the same time I hope to buy back the right to manage the Stockbridge Lane car park.

Both these two facilities are being poorly managed by SLDC.

I'm hoping that they will want to surrender their control.

I'm in touch with a large group of stall holders that would be willing to attend our market if the prices were lower. A full market is worth striving for.

David Gardiner - the guy at the plant stall says that the towns where they have control of their own market stalls are surviving reasonably well, the stall holders here are feeling pretty dispirited.

We can do a lot better.

With the approval of the rest of our committee, I plan to brighten the Market Square up with a few of our flags each Thursday until the Flag Festival starts.

Everything is on track for their being an impressive display of 50 new flags in The Gill. This is the part of The Festival that we're responsible for; the rest is being run the Better Towns Team chaired by Ralph Spours (Jane Kendall has resigned), Jean Povey, Cllr Judy Pickthall and Peter Winston (who took the project back in mid February having given it to us in early January). We are continuing what we had started having been officially been given the job in January.

James Airey, County, District and Town Councillor has agreed to meet me soon to review the present situation regarding the work on the cobbles on Market Street

I put it to him that:

"The main question is :

Will the work down Market Street be completed by Friday April 29th when the Flags go up for the Flag Festival, The Royal Wedding and the influx of people visiting the town for the 10th Anniversary of Printfest ?

The work down Market Street is having a devastating effect on the numbers of people coming to the Market which in turn effects the takings of the local shops.

The relaxed easy going attitude of the I.T. Shaw workers is upsetting to the traders who work hard to earn a living."

Let me know if you think this is a good idea and whether you want to get involved.

Something that was said earlier

On the Evening Mail web site:



Isn't the root cause of the cost of the toilets, the Tourist Information Centres and to include a really sore issue, the cost of our carparks all down to maladministration by SLDC.

The high paid executives are not doing their job of ensuring efficient operation. Instead of sorting the working practices of their officers and subcontractors out the councillors choose to run away from the problem and make cuts that would not be needed if the council were running like an efficient business.

But stop and consider this. Who employ these council workers and set policy that no businesses would tolerate? We do, through our councillors. So why aren't councillors right across the area trying to straighten this local council's workers out.

The same is true regarding the County Council and the Highways Department the officers take control and the councillors put up with it, they act powerless. Some issues need to be followed and checked through in great detail.

Isn't an important part of the problem that councillors are only too happy to have a poke at a problem and then give up?

Don't we need our councillors to show more leadership in exploring the business practices that lead to our problems. Now is a time for some fiery councillors to make sure that the system runs well.

If they need us to support them in any way they should tell us. How about a march through Kendal or something else dramatic.
Alternatively some well put together videos on Youtube that show up current practices (works for me a treat!).Can't they come up with something that will get the message across?

I'd suggest we need councillors right across the District who take their jobs seriously as though they were running a business. Not just making decisions but making sure they were being carried out. Too much time spent in the Council Chamber and not enough breathing down officers necks.

Does this make sense?

How come?

With a visitor's pass.

Parking? Some lessons required?


Highly infectious

Reminds me of Nick Park's animation.

Space - what I need is spaaaaace

Talking to the Tourism Community

A morning spent yesterday visiting the businesses on Ulverston high streets showed a lot of support for the meeting to be held with the councillors next Monday at 5:30pm at The Lantern House. Many people are making a big effort to make sure that their opinions are heard by the councillors.

In addition to the concerns about the lack of a tourist web site and the future of the TIC, the hot topic is car parking.

After the first two topics have been dealt with to the satisfaction of the meeting we will look briefly at possible ways of solving the car parking problem.

One solution being discussed is the buying back of the running of the car parks by the Ulverston Town Council. This would mean that the Town undertook to pay SLDC so much a year in order to be independent and fix the charges themselves in the belief that they could be more businesslike and generate more cash than the present high charges that lead to many car owners to park on our streets.

This would allow the Town to decide if and when it wanted to provide free car parking.

It is worth noting that the Ulverston Town Lands Trust already own the Gill car park.