John: The rise of cheap town centre parking

Feb 11 2010 by John Avison, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

IT’S cars, cars, cars this week in Avison land.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but one odd effect of the recession has been a huge sigh of relief on the part of car-driving Huddersfield workers and university folk.

This has come about because plans for development on land round the town centre have stalled.

The plots have been cleared, but the cash for new-build and the promise of profit therefrom is a bit doubtful.

To make a bit of dosh while the economy recovers, various landowners have let their acres out to entrepreneurs.

The tale is that these boys are renting the land for £200 a week and asking motorists £2 a day to park on it.

This, I’m told, is making the parking people up to £1,000 a day on each site.

The parks might be less secure than a Kirklees car park or roadside parking, I guess, but half the price.

I can’t imagine Kirklees Council’s thoughts on this matter.

Various people think they have detected a council anti-car philosophy – bus lanes, car parking fees, a fondness for speed cameras, speed bumps and chicanes and a laissez-faire attitude towards road maintenance – and a serious lack of joined-up thinking in how these control measures are applied.

They might also think that if Kirklees had been quick enough to negotiate with the landowners to run the parks themselves, a lot of cash that is now going to the profiteers would be dropping into the council tax coffers instead.