I popped down to my local town this morning to pay a cheque in.
It's like any other town in the country, so driver's are considered the spawn of Satan and it's difficult to park for a quick errand, which is particularly annoying. Who wants to pay an extra fee (parking in a car park nowhere near) to pay one cheque in? ...so....I dumped the car in a loading bay outside and whizzed in the bank.
I stood in the small queue and eventually a lady came in and joined the queue behind me.
When it was my turn...I noticed the parking warden stroll past the bank...so told the teller my predicament in the hope (which worked) that he'd hurry up. He handed me back my paying in book and said "there you go, he's always hanging around here, you'd better hurry".. at which point the lady behind me said "I'll have a word if you like, he's my husband".
The teller's face was an absolute picture..made my day.
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"It's like any other town in the country, so driver's are considered the spawn of Satan and it's difficult to park for a quick errand,"
The High Street is dying complain councillors.
Any fool could see a vague connection?...
Some US banks have drive in counters..
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>>Some US banks have drive in counters..
And of course there are many drive-in ATMs. Although I've always wondered about the braille translations on those.
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I tend to pay any cheques in (which is rare these days) by using my local post office. They hand you an envelope for your bank (if they offer this service for your bank). Yes it takes a couple of days longer but works for me.
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>> "It's like any other town in the country, so driver's are considered the spawn of
>> Satan and it's difficult to park for a quick errand,"
>>
>> The High Street is dying complain councillors.
>>
>> Any fool could see a vague connection?...
The high st is dying because it's no longer a relevant model for large scale retail.
ever since supermarkets moved out of town and into selling far more than food it's much easier than town. Unrestricted street parking just becomes a free for all. Even if the town centre multistoreys were free most of the populace are too bone idle to troop down to the precict/high st when everything can be had in one hit a Tesco Extra on the ring road.
And that's before internet shopping gets factored in.
Future is specialist shops and more residential use in town centres.
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>>The high st is dying because it's no longer a relevant model for large scale retail.
And yet there are buzzing towns with a good range of smaller shops, and they seem unscientifically to me to be correlated with free parking. I mentioned Castle Douglas the other day. Northallerton is my favourite of the species.
Small shops live on passing trade and small sales. Perfect example, years ago I stopped in Betws Y Coed for a paper - when I discovered that parking was going to add £2 to the cost of it I got back in the car and drove on.
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>> The high st is dying because it's no longer a relevant model for large scale
>> retail.
>>
>> ever since supermarkets moved out of town and into selling far more than food it's
>> much easier than town. Unrestricted street parking just becomes a free for all. Even if
>> the town centre multistoreys were free most of the populace are too bone idle to
>> troop down to the precict/high st when everything can be had in one hit a
>> Tesco Extra on the ring road.
>>
>> And that's before internet shopping gets factored in.
>>
>> Future is specialist shops and more residential use in town centres.
>>
It isn't difficult. Maximise the parking availability (within reasonable parameters) then allow 20 mins for free. 45 mins for less than a Quid and you'd wrap it up.
Some towns have gone mad on the enormous pavements and large flower tubs and forgotten who does the real spending.
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>> It isn't difficult. Maximise the parking availability (within reasonable parameters) then allow 20 mins for
>> free. 45 mins for less than a Quid and you'd wrap it up.
>>
Not strictly relevant, but the nearest town to where I live in Austria has plenty of on-street parking spread through the town, uses a similar model. First 20 minutes free (you have to get a ticket from the machine), then incrementally pay for a maximum of 90 minutes for €1.50. Always plenty of people around, individual shops, and usually free parking spaces.
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>> >> It isn't difficult. Maximise the parking availability (within reasonable parameters) then allow 20 mins
>> for
>> >> free. 45 mins for less than a Quid and you'd wrap it up.
>> >>
>> Not strictly relevant, but the nearest town to where I live in Austria has plenty
>> of on-street parking spread through the town, uses a similar model. First 20 minutes free
>> (you have to get a ticket from the machine), then incrementally pay for a maximum
>> of 90 minutes for €1.50. Always plenty of people around, individual shops, and usually free
>> parking spaces.
>>
An extremely sensible plan. Of course it would never work here as our Councils have become dependent on the parking revenues and are too thick to realise that a system like this would lead to less empty shops and more business rates to make up for the lack of parking income.
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>>parking revenues
Does anybody know how significant parking revenues are in places like Towcester, Bicester, Henley and similar?
Within the context of the budgets that those towns hold.
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>> Future is specialist shops and more residential use in town centres.
And the "night time economy" - bars, restaurants, entertainment.
They have it mostly right here - 50p for 1 hour, 80p for 2 hours, £1.20 for three hours max in the car parks around the town centre. The 24-space car park right outside the Post Office is free for up to an hour, which means on average a 2½ minute wait for a space (I worked that out once whilst waiting for a space there). Suits me fine as my town centre visits consist of ATM use, buying a paper or posting a parcel.
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi on Thu 7 Feb 13 at 19:23
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"And the "night time economy" - bars, restaurants, entertainment."
Yep, generates lots of work round here. Extra policing on Friday and Saturday nights, extra staffing in casualty department to deal with the victims of drunken brawls , people needed to clean up discarded trays half eaten trays of fast food and vomit covered pavements. Its a winner all the way. If you don't have it in your town or city make sure your local council gets into bed with some major chain of nightclubs and bars soon.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Thu 7 Feb 13 at 19:33
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>> Extra policing on Friday and Saturday nights ... victims of drunken brawls ...
>> half eaten trays of fast food and vomit covered pavements
You've been to Bedford then! ;)
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You've been to Bedford then! ;)
I've been to a large number of towns and cities throughout the UK and those that have succumbed to the night time economy idea and are much the same.
In Norwich fifteen years ago they decided to develop a large area of former industrial land by the River Wensum. They called it Riverside. We were promised an area of small restaurants and bars interspersed with high quality residential development. We have ended up with an area of large drinking barns and night clubs, cheap chain restaurants and large blocks of hideous flats. The adjoining area has deteriorated in a tacky strip of takeaways, and kebab joints. All the decent restaurants and businesses have now moved elsewhere in the City. It is now the most crime ridden area in Norwich with fights assaults and even murders every weekend.
The council still talks about expanding the night time economy.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Thu 7 Feb 13 at 19:59
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>> >> Extra policing on Friday and Saturday nights ... victims of drunken brawls ...
>> >> half eaten trays of fast food and vomit covered pavements
>>
>> You've been to Bedford then! ;)
What's wrong with Tavistock street?
;>)
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>> What's wrong with Tavistock street?
Some nice restaurants along there actually. Head 500-600 yards south along the A6, though, and...
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>> "And the "night time economy" - bars, restaurants, entertainment."
>>
>> Yep, generates lots of work round here. Extra policing on Friday and Saturday nights, extra
>> staffing in casualty department to deal with the victims of drunken brawls , people needed
>> to clean up discarded trays half eaten trays of fast food and vomit covered pavements.
>> Its a winner all the way. If you don't have it in your town or
>> city make sure your local council gets into bed with some major chain of nightclubs
>> and bars soon.
Clubland in Northampton shares Bridge Street with the Estate Agents; a day/night deal.
The street has to be closed to motor traffic 21:00 to 04:30 on Thursday to Saturday.
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>> Some US banks have drive in counters..
>>
There used to be a Nat West near Romford that had a drive through service till. The branch became a Richer Sounds shop in the late nineties.
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the yanks have drive in everything, i wouldnt be surprised if they had drive thru hair dressers? would need a convertable for that tho...unless they can reach through the window.or is that proceedure restricted to gynocologists?
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I fell out with a traffic warden in Yarm up in the north east a couple of years ago. I'd arrived in the town for a pre-arranged business meeting and needed to park in the town centre. I discovered that the local system is free parking for an hour or two monitored by those rotary cardboard parking disc thingies. I didn't have one but the restriction signs helpfully pointed out that they were available free of charge from some local shops displaying a window sticker.
All good then. So I, as a temporary measure, wrote out a note stating that I'd gone in search of a disc and had parked at 10.15 and shoved that on top of the dash.
It took me about eight or ten minutes to find a disc and return to the car only to find the warden issuing a ticket.
I tried to reason with him on the basis that I'd not known about the system but was doing my best to comply but he wasn't having it.
Twonk.
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Austria is obviously a far more civilised country than this one.
It seems utterly perverse to me to have wardens or cameras or mobile cameras enabling smelly goddam pickpockets to charge you for illegal parking when you are searching for change, or have left your car on a single yellow to nip across to the money machine, or have stopped on one to answer the phone or whatever.
What good purpose is served by raising the anxiety level of urban drivers to dizzy heights with this sort of excrement, or similar 'Ha! Gotcha!' techniques with stupid fornicating bus lanes and the like? It's horrible and disgusting.
Does the Conservative Party, the motorist's friend, do anything to undo this Livingstonian crap all over the country? No it doesn't
Money-grubbing fornicating swine.
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I couldn't have put it so well myself AC.
There are places that haven't succumbed, and they do seem to thrive.
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>> wardens or cameras or mobile cameras enabling smelly goddam pickpockets to charge >>you for illegal parking when you are searching for change, or have left your car on a single >>yellow to nip across to the money machine,
Carry some change in the car.
>> or have stopped on one to answer the phone or whatever.
Use Bluetooth or a wired handsfree, set to answer automatically.
>> Does the Conservative Party, the motorist's friend, do anything to undo this Livingstonian >>crap all over the country? No it doesn't. Money-grubbing fornicating swine.
Sounds as though it's a problem that you have brought on yourself.
Last edited by: Duncan on Fri 8 Feb 13 at 09:23
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Ely has free parking (other than a commuter car park near the station) in its three car parks. Two hours non return. Seems to work well, and always bustling, but always places free. From time to time the council moot the idea of charging, but so far the residents have argued against it successfully.
And before you say there's nothing worth seeing in Ely, it has a storming Cathedral, and indeed a stained glass museum of some note. And a nice tearoom or two.
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...and a lovely river bank where you can sit and watch things go by!
Pat
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And the expansive Waterside Antiques barn... 65 dealers and 10,000 sq ft which I will be roaming over shortly.
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And as I recently discovered it is where my Great Great Grandfather was born in 1797 not far from St Mary's church.
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My local high street is buzzing. Ok the old prescient is dying but that is soon being redeveloped to include a Booths.
Parking is a nightmare but its only a 5 minute walk from my house. In fact I can't think of any branch of my bank in any smaller town where I can't park for free and have less than a 5 minute walk to the bank. The only hassle is when it is raining.
I do sometimes wish there was such thing as a drive in bank, but it would not really work in the UK.
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Rattle>>Ok the old prescient is dying but that is soon being redeveloped
Which medium were they using?
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>> My local high street is buzzing. Ok the old prescient is dying but that is
>> soon being redeveloped to include a Booths.
They should have seen that coming, surely?
;-0
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Ely cathedral is most certainly storming and Its a nice little town.
And regular steams trains.....
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 8 Feb 13 at 10:05
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And two very nice restaurants - the Boathouse and The Old Fire Engine House, where seconds are free (yes really).
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We've been tying up (actually and virtually) at The Cutter for years... not the best out and out foody place but the shortest walk when you've floated in... and habit keeps drawing us to the door when in the car.
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Crikey. The Boathouse is about another three yards!
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>> Carry some change in the car.
>> Use Bluetooth or a wired handsfree, set to answer automatically.
>> Sounds as though it's a problem that you have brought on yourself.
Smug git.
:o}
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You wouldn't shoot the messenger, would you?
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>> Austria is obviously a far more civilised country than this one.
>>
Certainly is, in this way at least. There is a big shopping centre on the outskirts of Salzburg, with an Ikea, and the underground parking there is all free.
To be fair, you have to pay at the Designer Outlet indoor shopping mall (Macarthur Glen!) near the airport, but only if you stay more than 2 hours..........you can park for 20 minutes for nowt at Salzburg airport, while Linz airport allows you to park for two hours for the princely sum of nothing.
Last edited by: Mike H on Fri 8 Feb 13 at 19:15
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>>.I noticed the parking warden stroll past the bank.....
I'm not saying I would want to be a Traffic Warden, but if I *was* one, then I would be a good one. If I am paid to ticket illegal parkers, then that's what I'll do. I will know the likely spots, the likely areas of abuse, the usual games, everything.
And I would do a good job and nail everybody that I could.
Because that would be the job that I had agreed to do.
If I was sat on my backside letting everybody get away with everything, then I should be fired as a lazy scumbag.
Despite all of that, I would be just a salaried employee doing my job.
So, who gets the abuse in the UK? The bloke taking the wage and trying to do a decent job of it.
Who gets away with it, the lazy gits who take money for nothing, and the idiots who designed the parking restrictions.
To anybody who abuses traffic wardens, car park attendants, ticket inspectors, tax inspectors, or any of a million other similar roles, you are an idiot.
Those are people, usually decent, doing the job they've signed up to do and you're just upset because you think you should be allowed to do what you want.
If you don't like the law, then fight to change it. But don't abuse the poor sod stuck with enforcing it.
And that's me, just back from downtown after getting seriously stroppy with some idiot who was giving a smaller and older car park attendant a mean time. He was a pfd. A bullying, abusive pfd at that. Just goes to show, the old collar "grip and twist" still has its place.
Last edited by: Webmaster on Tue 12 Feb 13 at 12:16
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>> But don't abuse the poor sod stuck with enforcing it.
Quite. Even when he or she is a tiresome jobsworth working for the fornicating pickpockets.
I once listened for several minutes as a white van driver effed and blinded at top volume at a parking warden who had just given him a ticket. The guy, a Ghanaian I think, just stood there expressionlessly and listened too.
When WVM drove off I said to the warden something like: You took that very calmly.
'I'm used to it,' he replied.
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Interesting conversation in the bank this morning - madf
