Background
To the dismay of many residents, in December 2024 Bristol’s Transport and Connectivity Committee again debated a proposal to introduce charging at ten of its suburban car parks, currently free to use, having already rejected a similar proposal in October. These included the public car park on Westbury Hill (WH). This ‘second coming’ debate was different from the first in that the proposal before the Committee now included provision for a free hour before charging (at £1.50 per hour) kicked in. But again, this was to cover all seven days a week, and from 8.00am to 6.00pm. There was now also a somewhat vague provision for some long-term permits to be available if demand exists, which seemed, by implication, targeted at the Westbury on Trym Primary Care Centre, the only such local surgery that would be directly impacted by the ten-site proposal.
On this occasion the proposal was accepted in Committee (by 7 votes to 2), but provision was also agreed for payment to be by cash or card (either? both?), rather than mobile phone App and similar online options as originally proposed. As the formal report on its December decisions states:
[The Committee] approved the implementation of charges at District Car Parks as described in this report, subject to free parking be available from the ticket machine as well as over the phone or app.
I provided a report for WoTSoc on the public statements produced in advance on the October debate, and this is a brief update on the second, based again on those public statements lodged in a short window of time prior to the Committee meeting. These are now publicly available here:
I look at the nature of this second public response, the issues cited by those lodging statements and identify some broader themes of challenge that these raise. These might be particularly relevant to a further public consultation response to the next stage, of the Traffic Regulation Order (TRO), anticipated in early 2025.
The Statements
General
If the local public hostility to the charging proposal in October was impressive, that for the December debate was little short of astonishing. Despite the very short window of time available a total of 157 public statements were received for the Committee meeting, covering all its agenda items, of which no less than 144 were solely devoted to the WH site (1) while another paid it significant attention along with another item (parking on the Downs - S119). Others made rather less specific reference to the charging proposal within a broader response covering a number of the agenda points. One of these (S145) supported the principle of charging the ten car parks (which it named) but all of those focused specifically on WH were opposed, despite many acknowledging that, following the October debate, a free hour had now been incorporated into the proposal.
I noted in my earlier WoTSoc report that this clearly shows that the networking of information diffusion locally was working very well, and also that the nature of the responses in length, style and content showed them to be individually crafted, not drawing on a common prompt script. The same is true for December statements, though with the slight caveat that some of the earlier ones (assuming their numbering reflects their order of receipt) hinted at some of common ground and phraseology over challenging the Council’s contention that this was a separate proposal to the earlier one, by including the ‘free hour’ concession.
As before, the majority were from individual residents and/or users of the car park, writing from their personal experiences, but some (eg S63, S68, S81, S88, S120 and WoTSoc’s own statement – S101) represented wider community interests. These were both focussed on specific activities, such as the Primary Care Centre and Methodist Church, and the local community more widely. In contrast to the October debate where these were none, two statements now came from, and cited the interest of, specific businesses (S104 and S155) in the Village centre.
Specific issues cited
Here I adopt a similar though simpler classification to that for the October analysis, partly now to accommodate the high level of concern over the requirement in the proposal to use an online or mobile phone parking app to secure the free hour facility. This had not been so clear in the proposal of two months before so had attracted less hostility. Sometimes issues were mentioned only briefly in a statement, a single word or short phrase, but sometimes they were the sole focus of lengthy responses, so this simple ‘head count’ of issues carries this statistical health warning.
As in October, most statements range over a number of issues, with only 11 citing just one (and one none!). At the other extreme, 33 cited five or more, the average was a little over 3.5.
The Table below shows the details.
Issue |
Number citations |
% of all citations |
Local economy – businesses, services and shops |
115 |
23 |
Necessity to pay by app |
92 |
19 |
Use of the PCC and adjacent pharmacy |
88 |
18 |
WoT Churches – Methodist and/or Holy Trinity |
77 |
16 |
Voluntary. Community services |
52 |
11 |
Impact of displaced parking on congested and narrow residential streets |
48 |
10 |
Use of Village Hall |
17 |
3 |
School access |
1 |
<1 |
Others |
3 |
<1 |
Other than concern over the ‘app’ requirement, these are broadly in line with the October experience, though the ‘displaced parking’ concern was cited relatively more often than before. The still-high number citing the PCC is perhaps surprising given that the PCC’s October statement had made a specific request for a free hour, now conceded. But many respondents felt even this was insufficient, given their own experiences of using the Village health services and that of others they knew.
Otherwise, the league leaders are similar to the previous ones, with the top three in the Table each mentioned by over 50% of statements and only 6 citing none of them.
Broader themes
Finally, with the arrival of a TRO and its further opportunity for public consultation early in 2025, it might be useful to identify some broader themes that emerged from the statements, covering more than one of the above issues. (WoTSoc had some earlier email discussion of this last month, and what might qualify as an effective focus of objection at this final battle in the local campaign against charging.)
Here are the main themes I noticed, in no particular order:
The charges are discriminatory, particularly against the elderly
Many statements cited the top-heavy age demographic of the local resident population (the latest Census figures from the BCC website were useful evidence here) and the implications that followed. First among these, unsurprisingly, was the disproportionate unfamiliarity of the elderly with online/mobile apps as a means of payment and their reluctance or simply their inability thereby to secure the free hour. Given that this has now been conceded, at least for the first hour, some of the sting of this criticism has been removed, through the BCC’s decision (as stated above) leaves it unclear whether payments for beyond this free hour can also be made by cash or card.
The elderly were impacted in other ways too, though. First, their limited personal mobility made them more dependent than most on car travel to the Village, either their own or that of others, as bus services were inadequate unless you lived close to a No 1 bus stop, and even then often unreliable. The elderly and lonely also disproportionately benefitted from the host of voluntary services provided in the Village, particularly the Methodist Church. As these lasted beyond an hour some providers would find it difficult to continue if their volunteers were now charged for the privilege of giving up their own time to support the quality of life of deserving others.
Policy objectives
A few statements noted that such car park traffic data produced recently by a local group (the Transport and Placemaking Group – TPM) was at variance with that apparently still relied on by the Council over occupancy rates at WH and its use by short-term parkers. Many statements noted that very few long-term parking infringements actually arose now and that most parkers were short-term, usually of less than two hours, and often less than one. With charging introduced after one hour it seems reasonable to speculate that this frequency profile of parking stays will shorten still further, with parkers anxious to be gone within 60 minutes to avoid a punitive fine (as now in the Co-op car park). As well as impacting on the customer base of local businesses – more single-use visits and less multi-purpose trips, ‘just one cup of coffee now’… – this would inevitably reduce the revenue stream to the Council.
Yet as well as declaring its intention to foster short-term parking our Council has also declared that any car park not paying its way (in maintenance costs) will be sold off (as four little-used ones are being at present). Indeed, the Committee Chair reiterated this threat at the end of the December debate. It has not clarified whether and, if so how, it intends to revise the overall targets across the ten sites and those for each individual car park under the new charging regime, from those set in October (which were then £400k for all ten car parks in a full year, with WH, the largest, contributing £140k). The not unreasonable conclusion must be that by achieving a near-monopoly of use by short-term (hour or less) parkers this revenue stream drops towards zero and the car park will be offered for sale. On the other hand, maintenance costs will not be nearly as sensitive to the levels and profiles of usage, so the revenue shortfall to meet such costs can only widen. (I ran some calculations of costs and revenues based on the October position and WH’s then occupancy patterns, and when revised revenue targets are available it would be a simple matter to re-estimate the likely income stream(s) under a ‘free hour’ tariff.)
The policy is counterproductive
First, by increasing the maximum stay to four hours (from three) while also encouraging a limited number of permits to be purchased at a bargain-basement price (2) the Council’s December proposal appears to run counter to the desire to major on short-term parkers.
Second, introducing charging of any sort clearly encourages car-borne shoppers to transfer their business to nearby free-parking sites (particularly Henleaze, the new Lidl at Henbury and, of course, the ever-looming presence of Cribbs). This not only runs counter to Bristol’s declared intention, under a different policy initiative, of supporting the city’s ten second-tier District Centres, of which WoT is one, but also transfers custom and revenue to S.Glos.
to businesses beyond the City Council’s jurisdiction (such as the second and third of the previous examples).
Third, this also adds to the average length of car journeys for shopping purposes, and hence to fuel consumption, air pollution and road-miles generated, clearly counter to the City’s sustainable transport objectives under its new, Green political masters.
Finally, as noted by about one third of all Statements, it also threatens congestion in tight residential Village streets, laid out well before car use became near-universal, and making it next to impossible for many local residents to park anywhere near their own homes thanks to displaced parking from WH (3).
AGH
January, 2025
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Notes:
(1) One respondent provided two separate statements – S153 and S155 - but these were only counted once.
(2) The WoT PCC, at whom this seemed targeted, declined to take up this opportunity – see S88.
(3) Among the responses TPM received to a previous online survey of transport-related issues during lockdown, some residents felt they were being stalked by drivers waiting for them to leave home in the morning and then pounce on the roadside parking space just vacated!
