Letter: Parking charges - So what has changed...?

There must have been a very good reason for the plans to be shelved in February 2016. What has now changed?

I would like to invite Coun Mackenzie and NYCC to publish, in full, the details of the parking surveys conducted over the last month.

I am particularly interested in the number of spaces and the times when they were occupied throughout the day to tell the story of the parking situation in our town. Does NYCC feel that a months worth of data is enough? I would suggest not.

Demand for spaces varies according to time of the year, weather, functions and events in the town. A month’s snapshot does not give a good enough picture for common cause and any special cause variation to be seen.

I would like to offer my services, as an experienced data analysis of nearly 20 years, to help NYCC see the picture in Harrogate. I will do this free of charge.

I want to understand, as I’m sure most residents and businesses do, as to whether or not there actually is an issue with evening and weekend parking in town.

What I currently don’t understand is what the problem is and why it is perceived to be a problem.

The feedback from residents and businesses earlier in the year seemed to offer contradictory evidence to that of NYCC. Why would NYCC and HBC not listen to the votes of the people they work for? Seems rather arrogant to me. My-eight-year old could work out that “on Sundays the roads are more parked up than evenings”.

I want NYCC to demonstrate that real data has has been collected, demand and capacity figures, so we can have a proper debate. Until this happens, once again I feel that NYCC are creating solutions to problems that don’t exist.

If, as Coun Mackenzie says, it’s about “traffic management” rather than “monetary concerns” I would challenge him further to offer him disc parking. It works very well elsewhere in our area and our town.

To introduce fees DOES make it about monetary issues. He will no doubt come back and say the charges are required for enforcement. So don’t implement something that has no benefit to the town and costs money.

Graham Hyde

Old Trough Way, Harrogate