FFS – anything to rip us off…

Charge the buggers. So many people drive unnecessarily. I live in Bristol and they should bring in a congestion charging zone as well. I remember one of my elderly neighbours being blocked in by a commuter who had left his car over the entrance to his car park. When the commuter returned and was confronted he moaned that there was no where to park in town that wasn't expensive, when asked where he had driven from it turned out he only lived a mile away in Bishopston and he had driven to Cotham.

Most car drivers need a good reason not to drive and and if it means charging them then I am all for it.

I do sympathise with people who have to travel further but there are huge park and ride facilities in Bristol.

milton keynes have shown an intrest the same council that charge you and i to park but gives free parking to its employees will watch with intrest how they get round that one

I wonder if the local council staff will have to pay or will the tax payer be funding their parking,then there are the schools that use part of theplayground for car parking, its a minefield out there.

Dont tell ernie about council staff deserving free parking though. 😆

And what is the sole reason society has changed to allow us to commute large distances to work?

A mass of things. The car enables the movement of people, but if it didn't exist, something else would.

For a start:
The division of labour, leading to ever more specialised jobs.
Location based economies, leading to the movement of companies.
Housing availability, crime rates and cost.

It's very difficult for a couple to find jobs in the same city, and even if they do, it's often not possible to live at a location that provides two sensible commutes.

Taking Nottingham as an example, you have an affluent city centre with lots of employers, but it's surrounded by areas with a high degree of economic inactivity (in terms of the formal economy, at least), and plenty of crime. There are nice areas close to the city centre, but as they're limited, they're pricey. Lots of people who work in the city pretty sensibly choose to live in fairly remote suburbs.

Add in the fact that companies can relocate fairly often, and that people do tend to want to live with their spouse, it's amazing that many people do live within cycling distance of their work.

I hate to have to get on my high (dandy)horse but I work in a city centre. Parking is currently free. Land in the city is expensive and cars sitting on a large area of flat land do not make money. I may be a secret communist but most people in Britain like money, and the promise of more money. Car park is always full, commute takes about an hour in the car of bumper to bumper driving on crap pot holed roads to drive 8 miles. Commute makes me angry and stressed and when another road is closed for "maintenance" its my fault that I'm late for work.

So I go by bike, over riding (literally) all the above problems and the ladies love my shapely legs.

A few thoughts (I use to work for Boots, well the company that bought them :wink:), and visited their Nottingham HO often.

If they have 1000 car park spaces, but only 900 car 'users' – is the charge £250,000 or £225,000?

If they pay for all (or some) employees, maybe due to a 'business' requirement – does that mean that these (or all) employees will have a 'benefit-in-kind), and HMR&C will be involved?

What about visitors to the site, who work at different locations – will visitor parking spaces be allowed, and monitored?

If its £250 and paid by the employee, do they get their money back if they leave the company part-way through the year – and if they start mid-year is ita again pro-rata'd?

Oh, and its just a tax, nothing more, nothing less – if the council wanted to change peoples' actions, the charge would be £1000 minimum.

I work on an industrial estate in Chippenham, and due to limited space only certain staff have spaces available. Most of them live considerable distances away, and a lot work shifts. In North Wilts public transport is hopelessly impractical, one of my work colleagues lives seven miles away, and doesn't ride a bike, he's a big bloke in his fifties and starts at six in the morning. As he doesn't have a car at the mo', he gets a taxi, at £9 a trip. It takes him about ten minutes to get home. If he caught a bus, it would take him two miles the wrong way to the town centre, where he'd change to another bus that would go round the lanes to various villages, and he'd arrive home two hours after leaving work, and it would cost him £8.
Use public transport? What a joke.