Parking consultation report

Saturday, 14 February 2009

With an hour to go around 30 people had attended the parking consultation which was hosted yesterday by Parking Services and held at the Council Offices in Hebden Bridge. Although this doesn't sound a brilliant turnout, Nigel Pickles, Networks Manager, advised that this was a better attendance than had been seen at either of the previous consultations held in Halifax and Sowerby Bridge.

The event was held to gain the input of residents in individual towns by way of acknowledgement that each town has differing circumstances and needs. The information will be used to help establish a framework and to help develop future policy and set a strategic direction to guide development in parking services over the next 5 -10 years.

The views of local residents will help to stimulate debate, aid development of the way forward and prioritise the review requirements. Officers were on hand to talk to residents and to guide them through a presentation. Information and literature was available detailing schemes such as the Parking card system and the Contract Parking Scheme.

The parking card is a £20 pre-pay card which can be obtained from Calderdale Cash Offices and which enables meter parking by the hour without the danger of overpaying if no change is available. The Contract parking Scheme is designed for daily users of long stay car parks, on a monthly, 3 monthly, 6 monthly or annual basis which offers a discount on the normal daily rates. Nigel Pickles acknowledged that general awareness of both of these schemes seemed quite low and undertook to take this away from the consultation with a view to re-promotion of both schemes.

A questionnaire has been designed to enable residents to put forward their views although specific location issues are not the focus of the exercise at this stage. Feedback needs to be submitted by the 28th Feb and for those of you who couldn't get to the consultation on Thursday the questionnaire can be found here

Readers of the Hebden Bridge Web are encouraged to take the time to complete and return this questionnaire to ensure that as many local comments as possible are fed into the consultation.

Thanks to Lesley Jones for this report

See also

Have your say on parking