PEOPLE/president’s diary
“Town centres should offer
short-term free parking and
bring back bandstands to help
save Britain’s high streets”,
a government minister says.
These words in the 8 July edition
of the Sunday Telegraph stood
out and hit me hard.
They were attributed to Jake
Berry who is the minister for
the high street. My first reaction
was surprise and pleasure that
the government was taking the
health of the high street seriously
enough to have a minister
with specific responsibility for
it, but then disappointment
that such an influential figure
should revert to such a tired and
counterintuitive measure to turn
things around.
Keep car-use low
Make no mistake, the health
of the high street is important
to buses. According to the
National Travel Survey, up to
30% of bus trips are made for
shopping and we all know how
important they are for filling
those seats in between the
peaks at minimal cost. Although
car ownership is high, surely
we should be doing everything
we can to keep car-use low
and free car parking will not
encourage that.
But it’s not just because free
car parking in town centres is bad
for our business that it should
be discouraged.
Giving away things for free
often results in unintended
consequences and free parking
would simply lead to the
available spaces being taken
up by workers rather than offpeak
shoppers likely to be good
for the high street.
Even if the parking was timelimited
to discourage commuter
‘hogging’, there is still the issue
of the dichotomy between
a free parking statement which
would undoubtedly encourage
trip-making by car and the
message from other government
departments that for air quality
reasons alone, unrestrained car
use must be discouraged.
Adaptability is key
Jake Berry did go on
to talk in more thoughtful and
sustainable terms about the
future of the high street. His
bandstand argument, which
I agree with, is that high
streets will have to reinvent
themselves to become centres
of entertainment, the arts and
education to fill the vacant
spaces left by retailers if the drift
to internet shopping continues.
This is a longer-term cure
to the future of the high street,
but it is surely more sustainable
than the supposed easy option
of making all car parking free
(especially if all town centres
do the same). If this trend
continues it will require us,
as an industry, to be even more
active in shaping future patterns
of land use. At Go-Ahead we have
recognised the importance
of taking an active role in the
development of local plans and
have two town planners with
specific expertise in this field and
I know Stagecoach has done the
same.
Finally, to fully play our
part in sustainable ‘living town
centres’, the industry may
need to think about its hours
of operation.
If town centres do reinvent
themselves as mixed-use
entertainment-based centres,
some operators’ more restricted
0700-1900hrs Monday-Saturday
timings based around retail
opening hours and the commuter
peaks could become less relevant
with a wider operating day
required. Adaptability, as ever,
will be the watchword.
If town centres are to
‘reinvent themselves’,
the bus industry must
be willing and able to
adapt with them
A
‘The health of the high
street is important to
buses’
FREE CAR
PARKING
IS NOT THE
ANSWER
Martin Dean
/ CPT President
JONNY ESSEX / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
// Giving away
things for free often
results in unintended
consequences //
25 JULY 2018 ROUTE-ONE.NET / 55
