MORLEY Town Centre Management has pushed through a parking restriction scheme in a bid to free up spaces for visitors to the town and to make more spaces available to shoppers; Morrison's offered funding for the scheme but it will be funded by the council tax payer.
When I wrote to this paper a few months ago many people, including the editor, agreed that the situation had not yet got bad enough to set us on a path of parking restrictions and charges.
Many people I have spoken to since agree that visitors wou
ld be put off by such a scheme.
The new scheme will restrict parking in Queensway car park to three hours in the bottom half closest to the Morrison’s entrance, thus being very convenient for their shoppers.
In my first letter I asked for an independent parking survey to be carried out to ascertain the parking situation and to find out if there was any truth in the perception that people were using Morley as a park and ride for Leeds.
This was done in Queensway car park only and showed, while it got busy at times, it was getting used for the various purposes as would be expected for the town’s main car park. The all-day parkers were mainly Morley’s office and shop workers and Morrison’s own staff. It is not being used as a park and ride.
I’m sure there are lots of points that can be extrapolated from the survey for political use but that’s the general jist of it.
The results are quite hard to come by for the general public as there seems to be a requirement to rush this scheme through.
I would like it to be discussed at length at the forthcoming Morley Summit and the survey results to be available rather than buried in the middle of meeting agendas where very little public input is offered.
It is crystal clear that a three-hour restriction in this area will benefit Morrison’s customers at the expense of other users of the car park, but that was not the original idea, remember?
It was to free up spaces for the town’s visitors and make parking easier, wasn’t it?
Morley’s workers and visitors requiring longer than three hours are going to have to find another place to park. This pushes the problem somewhere else and does not free up spaces at all.
These are the points needed to be thrashed out in a more public arena where more than the usual dozen or so folk turn up.
GRAHAM TEAL
Happysaks
MORLEY MARKET
The full article contains 445 words and appears in Morley Advertiser newspaper.
