PSA: The end of free parking at Wheelbase/Mill Yard, Staveley

I have been told by a friend who works for a company that has offices and a shop on there that they are ‘challenging the guy that owns the mill yard about it’.

Not been implemented yet…

Over many years, I have spent a small fortune in Wheelbase and Wilfs and more recently in the brewery and the bakery and Inov8 because of the free parking at the mill. When coming back from a day in the lakes, it would make a good place to stop off for a drink/food/retail. There is no way I’d be stopping now at that price. I would think those businesses will struggle with the introduction of this charge.

If I wanted to park there all day, and not head futher into the lake district, then a small parking charge would make sense to limit numbers, but it’s so expensive that I would carry on driving into the lakes and park somewhere else. Really, all day parking is only useful for people with bikes as the walking is not the most interesting in that area.

I reckon the village is (justifiably) worried that everyone will simply park for free down by The Eagle or on residential streets and ride/walk into The Mill Yard.

If there’s going to be a charge there, especially as high as that, there need to be supporting measures locally to stop people parking up just round the corner, churning up the verges and potentially blocking off residential parking, deliveries etc.

Chatting today to riders who live in Staveley, some on street parking has gone residents only with more to follow. Understandable if you live there it’ll be a right pain if everyone parks on street. Apparently some businesses in the yard are lobbying the site owner.
Downside is loss of trade to Ings or Ambleside…

Maybe a compromise would be refund of charge if spending over a certain amount – but essentially that means the yard owner gets paid, the shops loose the money.

Wonder how much a roll of “Not in operation” stickers cost…

Paying for parking is fair enough, but needs to be free for 1.5 hours. 30 mins isn’t enough to use the businesses. I never really felt OK with freeloading for the whole day there. 

Any updates on this folks?

Just asked my mate who works there. I’ll come back to you when/if he replies.

Was there 2 weeks ago and payment is now required

Yep, my mate has confirmed that this is now the case.

That’s a shame I used to visit quite frequently.  Parking charges put me right off.  Sad for the businesses, I heard the podcast about the blind chocolatier in the yard.  I would have liked to support him.  I would have gone with the free hour disk parking like Ambleside to deter all day parkers.

Thanks folks 👍🏻

Yeah, I was there yesterday and the charges are still in place.

PSA… Wilf’s cafe offer you a refund if you are one of their customers. Top food and top service. I suggest we leave a few quid in their tip-pot as a gesture of thanks 👍

Just arrived at Wilfs Cafe (by bike) and it’s a very empty car park here! Normal weekend, it’s been full of folk unpacking bikes from cars but there’s only maybe a dozen or so cars.

<30 mins: free
Up to 1.5hrs: £3
Up to 3hrs: £5
Up to 10hrs: £10

However Wilfs did say they’re still busy and at weekends they now open late (til 10pm) when parking charges don’t apply.

TBF the price of parking pales into insignificance against the cost of a meal at Wilf’s. Good food, but pretty pricey.

What the Lakes needs in general is a series of huge carparks at the periphery, on some underused fields, where tourists can leave their big lifestyle vans and oversized SUV’s and proceed onwards into the park either by bike/ bus/ or tiny discreet electric cars…. would transform the place. Parking charges at the regular spots are already out of hand and charges like above must certainly affect business, 30 mins free isn’t enough to concertedly stroke fancy product -better parking in general would allow businesses to keep their customers parking free… and keep their customers.

However Wilfs did say they’re still busy

Without knowing the specifics, in general, businesses overestimate the proportion of customers that come by car. And someone always pays for parking, whether that’s the business, the council or the customers directly.

I always suspect the customer pays – by several routes simultaneously.

It was noticeable as I rode out of there how many people were parking on streets nearby and walking in. I reckon come summer time they’re really going to have to crack down on that cos some of it was insane – across junctions, near residents driveways and so on.

where tourists can leave their big lifestyle vans and oversized SUV’s and proceed onwards into the park either by bike/ bus/ or tiny discreet electric cars

Falls down on the fact that many people / vehicles travelling into the Lakes are loaded with camping gear, kayaks, SUPs, bikes, kids… A family going MTBing at Grizedale for the day is not going to park at Kendal and ride up there or transfer all their biking kit into a Smart car…

I’d start by providing the facility for alternative transport, financially incentivise it – then for those that need to enter the park in their outsize lifestyle mobile I’d implement a fixed charge for entering the National Park just like they’ve done in many US nat parks for over half a century. The funds can be used to repair the infrastructure that the increase in quantity and size of vehicles has noticeably nerfed in recent years. Do that or alternatively add a tourist surcharge to all hotels, camping, airbnbs’, just like many other worldwide hotspots already do and likewise use the funds to improve the infrastructure.

On the Staveley / Nan Bield ride with EMTB North West on Saturday 22nd June I accidentally paid for the parking 3 times because I was struggling to use the machine, costing me £30.
The new machine is paperless, so I had no indication that I had over paid until I checked my bank account.
Does anyone know who runs this car park and how I could contact them to try and get it back ?

I’ve often said these complicated bloody car park machines are a nightmare for grannies.

Good luck getting it sorted. The pic up the thread suggests “Your Parking Space”

YourParkingSpace – Find & Book Hourly, Daily & Monthly Parking

I’ve often said these complicated bloody car park machines are a nightmare for grannies.

Good luck getting it sorted. The pic up the thread suggests “Your Parking Space”

YourParkingSpace – Find & Book Hourly, Daily & Monthly Parking

I swear the people designing the UI for these things are the same people that hide the “reject-all cookies” button at the end of a 270 long list of add agencies you’ve never heard of [love your really Mark & STW].

The one for our local leisure center is particularly bad because nowhere does it actually give the option to “pay” for your 3 hours free parking.  Just lots of signs saying that if you don’t use the app you will be clamped.  You just have to infer/assume/trawl through the small print that actually no one (staying < 3 hours) has to use the app FFS. But by that point you’ve already condemned everyone involved to Ark Ship B.

Falls down on the fact that many people / vehicles travelling into the Lakes are loaded with camping gear, kayaks, SUPs, bikes, kids… A family going MTBing at Grizedale for the day is not going to park at Kendal and ride up there or transfer all their biking kit into a Smart car…

The simple-ish solution to just put a toll on every vehicle moving within the park, and maybe offset that by making the majority of LDNP / Council / National Trust car parks free.

Keeps it cost neutral-ish for the people parking vaguely responsibly and deters/equalizes things out with those parking in places that don’t then fund the parks infrastructure.

Then once you’ve driven to Grizedale and unloaded into a B&B / glamping pod / campsite you’re encouraged to either explore locally by bike or get busses etc on the days when you don’t need to be driving around with a car full of stuff.

Bringing this thread back to life – are there any overnight parking options around staveley now (not sleeping in my vehicle)?

Don’t mind paying at all, more than happy to, but as I understand Staveley Mill Yard is now out of bounds for overnighters.

Putting together a bikepacking route for some old buddies and I in a couple of weeks time.

I did the dales way on foot, if you follow the route from say Burneside to staveley, then the other side towards ings, you should find some quieter spots.  Maybe ask biketreks in ings if you park for a small fee.

People are amazingly price sensitive to parking. Our town center had a big problem. Free parking meant the prime places closest to the shops were 80% full by 9am by ship workers and commuters whose car was there for 9 hours. Nobody who wanted to use the shops could park.

Solved a few years ago by bringing in charges. £1 for 2 hours, with higher charges for long periods. You could now park there anytime.

There are also free supermarket carparks with max 2 hour parking. A bit less convenient for many shops but only a short walk away

Recently the minimum charge went up to £2. All of a sudden the council car parks are mostly empty. The supermarket carparks are rammed.

Really? Park further away to save £1?

These are  car drivers in the 3rd wealthiest council area in Scotland changing behavior for a £1.

I walk a fair distance to avoid parking charges in the west end of Glasgow but that is £4 an hour not £1 an hour.

are there any overnight parking options around staveley now (not sleeping in my vehicle)?

Ping me a message if you didn’t solve this already @bouncecycles

@poolman cheers bud

@irc paying isn’t the issue, just that overnight parking is prohibited so ai can’t leave my car and sleep on the fells

@chakaping will do.

I see the Hawkshead Brewery and Beer Hall at Staveley is closing. Switching production to Foxfield.

Wonder if the parking charges in anyway affected that decision.

It’s mentioned as one of there reasons. From FB:

Hawkshead is expanding our award winning beer brands into national grocery with recent wins for Windermere Pale Ale.

In order to be competitive on price we need to utilise our larger “state of the art” Krones Beer Line at our owned production site in Flookburgh, Cumbria.

The old small Brewery pub site at Staveley is leased and is not sustainable from an energy and efficiency point of view with manually operated equipment which will be unable to cope with the increased volumes.

In addition, we have renewed and increased the size of our delivery fleet of vehicles for our cask and keg business to allow a greater service outside of the Cumbria area.

The Brewery staff are being offered the possibility to relocate to the larger site which is 20 miles away which will also produce Crabbies Ginger Beer and Bankhall British whisky.

The Staveley Hawkshead Bar is also leased and is no longer profitable to operate due to the landlord applying new parking charges which has deterred customers, this will result in four permanent full time redundancies.

Halewood intends to invest in Hawkshead Beer to be available on Keg in our own Distillery Bars in Liverpool, London and Bristol.

All the core Hawkshead Beers will continued to be produced from Cumbria and we expect a smooth transition over to the Flookburgh site that has produced Hawkshead beers in the past.

Sadly The Beer Hall will be closing as of today. From all the team at Hawkshead Brewery we would like to thank everyone who has passed through our doors and shared in the amazing memories over the years. We are so grateful for all the support and a special thank you our locals (extended family) ❤️?

Sad but understandable I suppose.

I popped in there last month to show my GF the yard and pick up some pies from More.

Disappointed to see they’d turned More into a sit-down cafe with no pie counter, and it felt like there were fewer of the other units occupied or open.

Big queue for coffee and we had to dash off to meet our 30 mins parking time.

Big queue for coffee and we had to dash off to meet our 30 mins parking time.

Or you could’ve just paid the £3 charge – how much was the coffee?

Or you could’ve just paid the £3 charge – how much was the coffee?

Tempted to tell you to sod off and stop being a sanctimonious prick, but instead I’ll give a straight answer.

We only intended to grab a pie and cuppa, expecting to be 20 mins or so.

As it dragged towards 30 mins I said “shall I put some money in the machine?” and she said “no, let’s go and climb a hill”.

So we did.

HTH

I ate in wilfs recently, everyone who came in and ordered asked about the parking charges and whether they would be served and finished in the free hour.

Also, passed through staveley today on the bus and the residents down by the river, I assume the nearest no restriction parking, have put cones out to stop parking.

A lot of the blame for Hawkshead closing in Staveley is being placed firmly at the door of owners Halewood. They bought the company a while back and have been mismanaging it ever since. Laid off the original brewers (during Covid, classy move) who went on to form Lakes Brew Co.

The closure of the brew hall this week has happened with no notice to anyone, staff included. So while the parking charges may be a factor, by heck it’s been handled incredibly badly

Link to BBC https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn7l0585v11o