Have you heard of the bright new idea? It is part of the scheme to kill off as many local businesses as possible The powers that be are going to introduce and increase parking charges around high streets in west Surrey!
They are going to introduce pay and display machines in Chobham, Bagshot, Watchetts Road, Burrell Road and Frimley. They will charge Monday-Friday (excluding bank holidays) 8.00am - 6.00pm

Up to 2 hrs - FREE
2-3 hours - 40p
3-4 hours - 80p
4-5 hours - £1.20
5-6 hours - £1.60
6-7 hours - £2.00
7-8 hours - £2.40
All day parking - £2.50

Further changes include:
Increase charges to Camberley main Square, Knoll Road (for a stay between 3-6 hours), Sunday charges, and the Camberley library car park.
Freezing charges at the 08/09 rate to Yorktown and on night time charges (in Camberley anyway!)

They estimate an increase profit of £155K. Instalments of the new pay and display machines are estimated at £31K. Better than an increased council tax some may argue…
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[size=9pt]I have to say – many of the smaller towns such as Frimley and Chobham shouldn’t really be affected too badly – there is not much to see or do. I personally couldn’t make a two hour stay out of it! Do you think businesses will really be affected? The last thing we need is a reduced number of shoppers ending in reduced shop sales and loss of jobs! Is it all doom and gloom for Surrey?[/size]

Hello Emily,

There are always increases in charges from our local and national Governments these days on any form of liberties we would like to take.

Whether it's buying alcohol or cigarettes, going for a drive into town; or the worst - returning home again (e.g. Local road pay and display, road tax, petrol). And let us not forget about the tax on top of immense insurance amounts. Driving and living are definitely expensive.

Sadly though, I would love to have your parking charges over the ones around our local area or in larger towns like Kingston-upon-Thames, Guildford and Woking. No charges on Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holidays? That's a blessing that I'm not particularly used to.

Walton-on-Thames and Weybridge are by far not the largest towns with the biggest shops, but they can still boast high fees of up to 7.00GBP per day parking expenses.

Admittedly for smaller towns the parking charges may feel like a bit of a shock. But I would love for you to respond to me with your reasons for why the decision to introduce these parking charges would 'kill off' our loved local businesses.

Welcome to the forum – the wink after “scheme to kill off as many local businesses as possible” symbolised me purposely over exaggerating . I personally do not believe that it will be the end of smaller local businesses however I have heard individuals blaming parking increases for the lack of visitors in their town. Just made me wonder what everyone else thought to this. Will it directly affect the amount of visitors we have? (This will go on to affect local businesses)
 
“Shops are heavily taxed for being there and then the customers are chased away by charges and inconvenience”
“With the current economic problems this will really harm local businesses.”
“It’s not that expensive really if you only want to ‘pop’ into the shops”
 
A couple of weeks ago on the bank holiday Monday I visited Woking and did suffer the £8.50 car park fee. Agreed our local increase cannot mimic this. Do you ever wonder if after this recession all these fees etc will ever go down?

Thank you for the welcome to the forums,

This is Surrey. Times are hard, jobs are hard to find etc. But if you can afford to go to a local business shop in a local town and pay the local prices over ordering items generally more cheaply over the internet, then I think you can somehow stretch your pockets for the 40p to stay there for 3-4 hours and enjoy your ice cream in the sun.

When deciding to go shopping in a town, the price of the parking generally doesn't affect where I choose to go. It's the shops that will offer exactly what I want at good prices. If I know that I won't find such products then I'll just order them online.

However, I do not like the price of parking in large towns where I may: go to the Cinema, go watch a live music event, or even just take some friends to a club or the pub. For this means that I will spend many hours there. But then, if I'm doing that, I'm not helping the retail industry either am I?

With regards to your comment about the recession:
Governments and local authorities tried to fix the economic dilemma by spending a lot of our taxed money. In the found event that their 'solutions' were a waste of this, they are now needing to get all of that money they lost back. Therefore obviously the best way to get ourselves out of the recession is to take more money from us. Along with increases on taxes, parking fees are included in this.

I believe the small sum was 10 billion to reclaim. How long do you think they'll take to get that back before they'd start thinking about reducing or removing parking charges?

lol i have to agree that increased parking for naff shops (most of them seem to be disappearing in the recession) it is annoying. i buy most things on the internet now. and why not? the less money i can pay to the corruptness (massive over generalisation but soooooo annoyed about mps expenses...!) of our council and political institutions makes me happier. god. i know i need a life. but its difficult to ignore how annoyed they make me feel

personally i think you have every right to feel annoyed. i've been ripped off when i've been to big towns like kingston.. i cant remember the name of the carpark, i think it's fairfield or something - basically it's the indoor multi story, the one with the tight winding ramp where you pay before you leave... i stayed here for a couple of hours one afternoon to have a meal with friends and it cost me something stupid like £8.50! i havent had much experience with parking in quieter towns so i dont know what prices are like elsewhere. i always try and avoid this particular car park from now on coz im sure there's cheaper ones in kingston but as a word of warning, never use the fairfield in Kingston! lol 

lol i've only been to kingston once becuase its pretty hectic. the car park we were in seemed to be outside kingston and that was expensive too. I think its a pain paying in the evening. it used to be that local car parks in town centres were free after 6pm to help with evening trade but these now seem to have changed to flat evening rates (unlimited time) or in woking (went bowling one night) you have to pay up to 8pm! pah! my scrooge tendancies will make me become a recluse soon hahahahaha

Personally I think that parking does affect where I choose to go shopping. If it is cheaper going by train then I will go by train and give my money to other companies haha - it is a small victory for me

And then you give your money to a most definitely overpriced system... the train line.

Who to blame for parking charges depends on the car park your park in. Some of them that we all claim to be too expensive are also quite likely to not be run by the council but by the shopping centre or a business.

Admittedley it does become nice when the councils mess up. Earlier this year Guildford council had to pay out the parking fees it had taken from road side parking over the past 4 years back to the people who had parked there because they hadn't written out their policies correctly. And then people had a couple of months of free roadside parking while they fixed them.

Hi,

This is a great topic... Public transport prices... Not only are buses quite expensive - but train fares.

I live ins urrey and often have to commute to london for numerous reasons. I have friends in all corners of london and have never thought once that the cost of these journeys have been thought out properly.

I can get an all day travel card for london which will enable me to travel anywhere within the london zones for £15 off peak However if i was to buy a one-way ticket to lets say hammersmith this would cost me around £12.00 ... But to travel to lets say Brixton which really isn't far from me on the train it would cost around £10.00 ... It just doesn't make sense to me for 3 pounds extra I can travel all over london.

I understand that in Elmbridge, where they have just increased rail station car parking charges significantly, they are actually taking less money in total than they were before the charge increase!
And car parking in local streets has increased noticably.
Does anyone think that wasn't predictable?

It seems like prices always go up and rarely down.
Look at petrol! In April I was paying 94.9p a litre and today I am paying aorund 102.9p !! I am sure the petrol hasn't finished increasing yet. What is the cheapest petrol station in Surrey at the moment?