Car Park closures

Post by **tyke bhoy** » Sat 20 Nov, 2010 12:40 pm

raveydavey wrote: And I note the charges at Crossgates are going up again from Dec 1st - 80p for up to 2 hours, £1.80 for up to three hours then it gets very expensive indeed. Now it's a money earner, rather than keeping the station users out of the car park. To be fair that charge may be at the behest of LCC. Leeds Met own the underground and ground level Rose Bowl car parks. A condition on the car parks imposed by LCC was that it couldn't compete with Woodhouse Lane on the short stay charges and the long stay charges i.e. working day were prohibitive(£1.50 per hour up to 5 hours and then £25 for any longer). Also no free parking was to be provided for Leeds Met Staff

Post by **chameleon** » Sat 20 Nov, 2010 1:29 pm

Well, well, well!YEP today (spurious links removed for Tyke)Leeds City Council's u-turn on car parks closuresAn urgent review of Leeds city centre car parking will go ahead after YEP readers came out in force to criticise plans to shut seven all-day car parks.Commuters said the loss of 2,500 cheap long-stay parking spaces would hit them in the pocket when Globe Road, Sweet Street, Trent Street, Ingram Street, Ingram Row and Water Lane car parks in Holbeck close in January.The move will not encourage drivers onto public transport or cut congestion, you told us.Richard Serra of Leeds Chambers added that the decision would damage the city's economy.The car parks were shut down as they were unauthorised - the owners did not have planning permission to operate them.They sprung up on developers' land in answer to the growing residential, business and leisure community located at Holbeck Urban Village.Coun Richard Lewis, executive member responsible for city development, said: "The council understands the importance of long-stay car parking spaces for many commuters working in the city."At a time of economic difficulty we recognise the vital need to support the local economy."The decision of the planning inspector is the end of a process that started in 2006. However, it does not come into force until the New Year."We will be conducting an urgent review of long-stay car parking in this period to look at what the council can do to make sure adequate long-stay car parking facilities are available."The YEP revealed that alternative long-stay parking spaces are available, but that they will cost motorists up to four times more.Nearby car parks include the NCP on Boar Lane, which charges £14.90 for stays of up to 12 hours and has 630 spaces; Q Park off Sovereign Street which charges £12 for up to 10 hours and has 499 spaces; and Town Centre Securities on Whitehall Road which charges £7.50 for the day and has 62 spaces.Four of the unauthorised car parks will be allowed to operate a short-stay car service.But in a bid to get commuters off the roads and onto public transport, drivers will be charged £25 for stays over five hours.The rest will close.

Leeds-lad · Post by **Leeds-lad** » Sat 20 Nov, 2010 2:44 pm

chameleon wrote: Well, well, well!YEP today (spurious links removed for Tyke)Leeds City Council's u-turn on car parks closuresAn urgent review of Leeds city centre car parking will go ahead after YEP readers came out in force to criticise plans to shut seven all-day car parks.Commuters said the loss of 2,500 cheap long-stay parking spaces would hit them in the pocket when Globe Road, Sweet Street, Trent Street, Ingram Street, Ingram Row and Water Lane car parks in Holbeck close in January.The move will not encourage drivers onto public transport or cut congestion, you told us.Richard Serra of Leeds Chambers added that the decision would damage the city's economy.The car parks were shut down as they were unauthorised - the owners did not have planning permission to operate them.They sprung up on developers' land in answer to the growing residential, business and leisure community located at Holbeck Urban Village.Coun Richard Lewis, executive member responsible for city development, said: "The council understands the importance of long-stay car parking spaces for many commuters working in the city."At a time of economic difficulty we recognise the vital need to support the local economy."The decision of the planning inspector is the end of a process that started in 2006. However, it does not come into force until the New Year."We will be conducting an urgent review of long-stay car parking in this period to look at what the council can do to make sure adequate long-stay car parking facilities are available."The YEP revealed that alternative long-stay parking spaces are available, but that they will cost motorists up to four times more.Nearby car parks include the NCP on Boar Lane, which charges £14.90 for stays of up to 12 hours and has 630 spaces; Q Park off Sovereign Street which charges £12 for up to 10 hours and has 499 spaces; and Town Centre Securities on Whitehall Road which charges £7.50 for the day and has 62 spaces.Four of the unauthorised car parks will be allowed to operate a short-stay car service.But in a bid to get commuters off the roads and onto public transport, drivers will be charged £25 for stays over five hours.The rest will close. But in a bid to get commuters off the roads and onto public transport, drivers will be charged £25 for stays over five hours.The rest will close.Which in actual fact means that no-one at the council is listening/watching or reading peoples letters/emails or local TV

Post by **chameleon** » Sat 20 Nov, 2010 3:05 pm

'Which in actual fact means that no-one at the council is listening/watching or reading peoples letters/emails or local TV '.......Or Secret Leeds!!!!!Similar moves have been tried before and sooner or later are reversed - after a suitable length of time for it to be dubbed, 'A new initiative to ease parking problems and encourage people to shop in Leeds'.Nothing new.

raveydavey · Post by **raveydavey** » Sat 20 Nov, 2010 3:56 pm

No-one at the council cares, to put it bluntly.I strongly suspect that there are significant numbers of council employees who are forcing this agenda through, with the elected councillors simply rubber stamping what is put in front of them - it's how most of the council works.So, how does the city centre continue to function when 2,500 workers can't get to work? The city centre is already dying a slow death - move away from places like the VQ and the place is struggling massively now. Places like The Core and the Shopping Plaza have swathes of empty shops, before extra capacity is added with Trinity and (possibly) the Eastgate development coming on line.Once businesses start to flood out to office parks on the periphery of the city because staff can't afford to get to work in the city centre, the the whole process will simply accelerate. Can no-one at the council see this? I wonder what the City Centre managers take on all this is?

Post by **chameleon** » Sat 20 Nov, 2010 4:30 pm

raveydavey wrote: No-one at the council cares, to put it bluntly.I strongly suspect that there are significant numbers of council employees who are forcing this agenda through, with the elected councillors simply rubber stamping what is put in front of them - it's how most of the council works.So, how does the city centre continue to function when 2,500 workers can't get to work? The city centre is already dying a slow death - move away from places like the VQ and the place is struggling massively now. Places like The Core and the Shopping Plaza have swathes of empty shops, before extra capacity is added with Trinity and (possibly) the Eastgate development coming on line.Once businesses start to flood out to office parks on the periphery of the city because staff can't afford to get to work in the city centre, the the whole process will simply accelerate. Can no-one at the council see this? I wonder what the City Centre managers take on all this is? If businesses start to move radially away rom the centre, will this not lead to atempts block new out-of-town retail outlets as has happened before? The viscous circle continues.

Post by **tyke bhoy** » Sat 20 Nov, 2010 4:32 pm

raveydavey wrote: Once businesses start to flood out to office parks on the periphery of the city because staff can't afford to get to work in the city centre, the the whole process will simply accelerate. Can no-one at the council see this? I wonder what the City Centre managers take on all this is? And out of town office parks don't reduce the number of cars on the road they increase them and worsen the congestion due to workers having to cut across the peak hour traffic flows. The Valley Business Park at Stourton is very well served by buses but unless you live close to the city centre or in Hunslet, Stourton, Robin Hood, Rothwell, Methley, Whitwood, Pontefract, Oulton, Woodlesford, Lofthouse or Northern suburbs of Wakefield you will need two buses in each direction. Probably as a result of planning restrictions the car parking is limited so the result is a lot of illegal/semi legal on/off road parking all around.Most people within a 10 mile radius of Leeds should not have much more than a 10 minute walk to a bus and/or train in to Leeds Centre you have to be very lucky to live in one suburb and work in another that has a direct public transport link.

Reginal Perrin · Post by **Reginal Perrin** » Thu 25 Nov, 2010 1:58 pm

It all stinks of legitimised organised crime. Closing businesses just because they do not have the right "permission". Just give them the permission then. Then the council will look at providing alternatives. Stealing business basically. It absolutely stinks.I'd rather bike it to work than use the rip off bus service monopolies. Risk my hide on a 10 speed every day and get a bit fitter. It should not be £100 a month to commute 6 miles a day.Watch residential streets of Holbeck, Beeston and Hunslet be crammed ful of cars. You can walk in from Holbeck too. Round where JTF used to be. In fact I think the old JTF carprk is available empty.

Keg · Post by **Keg** » Thu 25 Nov, 2010 2:04 pm

I will do what we have done in the past- shop in Harrogate, it's got all the stores that Leeds has plus a lot of independent shops, loads of parking

Riponian · Post by **Riponian** » Thu 25 Nov, 2010 2:52 pm

Reginal Perrin wrote: I'd rather bike it to work than use the rip off bus service monopolies. Risk my hide on a 10 speed every day and get a bit fitter. It should not be £100 a month to commute 6 miles a day. Funnily enough this is the approach I have already take for the last couple of months. After getting off the 36 I collect my trusty steed from Cyclepoint and First Ripoff don't get a penny from me any more, no more Green Zone tickets to buy, and I'm not hanging about waiting for a bus. Just mowing down pedestrians on the canal towpath (not really!).