Perturbing Parking Points in Question

The Kentish Express revealed this week that car parking prices are set to rise by a whacking 3.5%.

As the local paper points out, this is significantly higher than interest rates. It is also significantly higher than Council Tax rises, and one must wonder what the profit revenue is on the vast array of parking across Ashford.

Local Residents

Noted in the last paragraph, where the deliberate or not seeing is only 10% of readers of the get that far, on street parking will come into line with town centre car parks.

This is in order to "give town centre residents more chance to park nearer their homes".

What a wonderful social divide this provides-you are entitled to park nearer to your house in the event you can afford to do so.

Comparable Boroughs

The KM states;

But the costs are only catching up with the higher charges of Canterbury and Folkestone.

However, Canterbury has park-and-ride system which is significantly cheaper than the city centre car parks, and yet manages to fund an entire "every 10 minutes" bus service on these rates.

And while Folkestone might charge more for an hourly rate their residents parking permits and season tickets are significantly cheaper than ours, probably largely due to the fat that they do not have a direct line to London.

If Ashford Borough Council could justify an entire park and ride service based on an increase of 20p, which is the current rate in Canterbury for park-and-ride, I would be very impressed.

Revenue Accrued

Out of interest, I've been studying Ashford Borough Council's website on parking.

Based on the predicted price rises, ABC will accrue a whopping £1504.80 per hour.

This works out at £18,057.60 per day,
£126,403.20 per seven day week,
£547,747.20 per calendar month
and a terrifying £6,572,966.40 per year.

And yet the Welsh Assembly is able to offer free parking across the entire country.

Fields of Concrete

I must admit it has been sad to see in recent years Ashford being depleted to such a vast expanse of concrete. Elwick Road and Station Road, in particular, have slowly but surely being bulldozed, leaving open, asymmetrically lined ground instead of local businesses, community infrastructure or jobs.

I'm not against modernisation per se, but one has to question why so many additional parking spaces were needed in Ashford and why the suggestion that the Park and Ride complex were not made earlier.

Given the amount of money that the increased car park charges will be adding to Ashford Borough Council's coffers, I am amazed that it is not going through sooner.

But then again, how else could they afford a month's worth of consultancy fees on where to paint a use on the shared space initiative?