Car park charging plan dropped by Bath and North East Somerset Council

“It will be interesting to know how the council are going to find the £300,000 that this measure would have raised. Most of the cupboards are already bare as it is.”

“Motorists should be prepared to pay the cost of their pollution rather than expect the taxpayer to pick up the bill.

They are and already do.

Parking charges are something different - here probably linked to a local authority's opportunism in attempting to replace funding losses having pledged to remove revenue-building traffic.”

“I can't believe the council's u-turn on this. Motorists should be prepared to pay the cost of their pollution rather than expect the taxpayer to pick up the bill.”

“How has Moorland Road escaped the parking charge brigade for so long? Although I am not a fan of pay parking as a rule, it is impossible to park down there even with a blue badge so maybe charging would help the turnover of spaces and encourage more enforcement. When there is not even space on the yellow lines it is time to act surely?”

“Which is entirely correct Timmy - where there is space to put in those safe cycle lanes which in a place of narrow streets like Bath requires some imagination and maybe alternative viewpoints. I've suggested before that if buses aren't going to contribute to the solution maybe taking out the London Road bus lane and using the space to create a kerb protected cycle lane either side might encourage more people to cycle on one of the main flat routes into/from Bath centre. There seems little point using bus lanes to make buses more reliable and therefore attractive if First is just going to restrict capacity to maximise profits - why not try something new!”

“Brook - do you really think anyone would suggest parking charges as a way to fund 'major transport schemes'?

In an ideal world, Councils would invest in public transport and safe walking and cycling routes before introducing parking charges. Yet - regardless of the current financial climate - councils are limited on how they can raise funds and what they can spend them on.

However, this does not change the basic premise that parking charges are a good way of making our high streets more successful and boosting the local economy.”

“Spot on, Dave_Weston.

Don't forget "providing for cycling in a way that people *feel* safe" for motor traffic reduction, too. There are some short, local trips that could be made by bike that are currently driven, but (apart from the "keen" cyclists) people would rather ride away from motor traffic.”

“Very true Dave Weston, nationalisation or true competition. it's either/or in my book. We have neither in the West Country in particular and with the cost of living here so high it's grossly unfair to ensure nearly all modes of transport are unaffordable to the majority of people who live and work here.”

“Trouble is, we keep coming back to the same situation - without any real means to manage buses into an attractive proposition, councils are left with the sole option of making driving so unattractive that the buses look less unattractive. However that is to some extent chasing its own tail - the economics of running buses means that putting another bus on the peak runs which is going to make no money off peak isn't profitable so its better to push back against increased demand by raising fares (thereby increasing revenue with no additional cost).

So what happens in practice is driving becomes more expensive/difficult and at the same time getting the bus gets more expensive with the net result that little transfer actually happens, and people just end up worse off and unhappy with traffic being as bad as ever.

Until some form of regulation of buses occurs (which needn't be full nationalisation - you could have regulated fares and private operators bidding to run services either for a premium, for free or for a subsidy) a lot of the rest is shifting the deckchairs on the Titanic. Its hard to see after years of effort what has actually been acheived in terms of reducing congestion, other than diverting some trade to other places.

Getting a better balance of car vs other means of transport is undoubtedly the right thing to be looking for - at the moment though we aren't acheiving.”

“I'm against all transport monopolies. State or otherwise. South Yorkshire is leading the way on driving down fares with a variety of operators involved.”