Pembroke Dock Web Project Forum

Have your say on what could be a disaster for us here in Pembroke Dock

Dear Chamber Member

You are no doubt aware of the Pembrokeshire County Council proposed car parking charges to both Lower Meyrick Street
and all of the ASDA car park ( referred to as Gordon Street car park ).

The chambers initial reaction was to request parity with Milford Haven, as it is proposed they had a 10p an hour levy charge.

However, after various meetings, it was agreed to totally oppose the charges, (like Milford Haven), the bottom line is, should
whatever charges come in, this, we feel, would give PCC the opportunity to raise the charges at a later date.

As such, we are strongly requesting that chamber members write individually to member of the Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

To assist you on this, we have produced 3 template letters for you to use, if you wish to use your own, please feel free to do so.

We have have also named the members of the committee on the attached document, please feel free who you wish to write to.
To get the point over, we would recommend that you write to all of them, this may take you some additional time, but it would hopefully help
our cause.

If you have any difficulty in pasting the letter, printing etc, please contact us and we would be more than willing to assist you.

We fully appreciate that this a great deal to ask of you, however, it is worth noting that the Council would not let us be represented
at the next meeting and this is the only way of getting our point over.



James Parfitt & Chris Morris

c/o PLANED,
Old School
Narberth
Pembrokeshire
SA67 7DU

4th September 2009

Dear Sir

Reference:
Proposed changes to car parking charges, agenda item 11, Cabinet meeting September 7th 2009.

I write on behalf of members of Pembrokeshire Business Network and associated local business groups to express our support for some of the proposed changes to car parking charges, and serious concerns and objections to others.

We fully appreciate the Council's need to raise revenue in the current
economic climate and accept that the measures suggested for Haverfordwest,
Pembroke and Tenby in raising the existing charges are likely to improve
parking availability without major detriment to the retail trade.

Our concerns and objections relate to the new charges (Where none existed
before) proposed for Fishguard, Milford Haven, Pembroke Dock, Pembroke,
Newport and Narberth.

Many high street businesses are facing serious financial pressures and we have already seen a number of household names close. The high streets of Milford Haven and Pembroke Dock especially are littered with empty shop units and to introduce parking charges where non previously existed will encourage a migration of ‘footfall’ towards the big ‘out of town’ stores where parking is still free, and away from town centre shopping facilities.
In addition the inconvenience will encourage shoppers to park indiscriminately, potentially blocking routes and creating a health and safety issue. This is already happening in Narberth and it is felt that the introduction of charges here will exacerbate an already contentious issue.
The proposed new charges may also result in increased cost to the Council through more shop closures, unemployment and the cost of high street/town centre regeneration in addition to the ongoing costs of collection and policing the car parks.
The report on which these recommendations are based has used evidence gathered in 2007. It states that the financial climate in Milford Haven is ‘good and improving’ which we believe is no longer the case.

There are a number of questionable statistics, figures and suppositions which
have been included within the CB report, which when taken together can
distort the conclusions.

We should be looking at encouraging the economic development of our high streets so that Pembrokeshire towns continue to offer a unique high street experience to visitors and locals alike and do not become generic clones of many other towns and cities in the UK.

We believe that another issue to be addressed is the convenience of parking access for visitors in the summer months where town centre car parks are virtually full of cars parked all day by those working in the town. The result of this lack of available parking spaces is that the big supermarkets with free parking benefit from the arrival of frustrated visitors unable to park in the town centres, and town centres suffer reduced visitor numbers. This issue is partially addressed by the restriction of parking in some locations to 2 hours maximum, but would benefit from an innovative solution such as punitive daily charges in town centres over this summer period, coupled with park and ride services from more remote car parks at key start and finish work times.


There needs to be a consultation with interested parties before these
changes are implemented. Can we be involved?

Yours Sincerely,

Paul Woolman

Paul Woolman
Chairman of Pembrokeshire Business Network.

From Maria Re: car park charges in pembroke dock ?? "I think it is disgusting that they are considering charging anything with the current
state of our town, surely this is going to make even less people go to the shops that are left."

Sandra sent you a message. --------------------Re: car park charges in pembroke dock ?? This is unfair and a total disgrace - we need to stop this happening.
Please let as many people know as possible so that we can maybe sort out a protest,
before they sneak the charges in!!!!

Kim sent you a message. Re: car park charges in pembroke dock ?? "Pembroke Dock is already suffering from the demise of main street businesses
due to the attraction of the larger supermarkets. Parking charges will only
serve to reduce the number of customers visiting main street shops....
what happens to the remaining businesses then, especially as parking at Asda, Wilkinsons,
Lidls and Tescos etc is free. This cannot be fair. Surely the smaller local businesses,
many of whom have been established for several years deserve better treatment!
It is not the people who will be required to pay the parking fees who will suffer...
it is the busineses."

Terry sent you a message. Re: car park charges in pembroke dock ?? "Hi James, working in PD I agree with you on this...
Any increase will only damage the local traders."

Simon sent you a message. --------------------Re: car park charges in pembroke dock ?? Have they not seen the number of vacant shops in the town at the moment I think we need
to delay imposing charges until the town centre is revitalised. Failure to do so may lead
to losing what we have left. Takers are not jumping at the taking up the vacant lots
we already have such as the old spare or woollies. It would be like nailing the coffin closed
on the few vibrant ones we have left Barnstaple did this about a year ago at a stage
when they had lost 40% of their town centre businesses. They are now down to just under 50%
Take a leaf out of their book if you want a dead town centre from which now one will visit
to pay their charges. Period If they must impose charges male them small as Milford does and even there they have a large
number of free parking options near to their shops.

Roger sent you a message. Re: car park charges in pembroke dock ?? "there is no money in the dock now make big supermarkets pay not town you got no idear"

Vikki sent you a message. Re: car park charges in pembroke dock ?? "why do they need to bring the charges in?if they start chanrging
i will start parking in western way car park and im pretty sure
loads of others will too. also charging will almost definatly
increase the number of people doulble parking in diamond street and meyrick street
and using the disabled bays how they like.if they do have to start charging
it should be the same through out the county and clearly marked unlike tesco's!!....rant over,"