I have seen a noticeable decline in parking facilities in certain areas, especially in locations where real estate is valuable. At most popular tourist resorts, we are finding now that coach parking has been taken away and there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of facilities.
Mention to most coach drivers now about going to London, and staying overnight, and they’re reluctant – especially if the organiser is providing the accommodation. Trying to get suitable parking in London can be a problem. For example, Bayswater Road coach park has been charging an absolute fortune recently, to the point where we wonder if the owners are doing it on purpose to sell the site off, on the basis that there is no demand for it.
We’re seeing that more and more – that coach parks have been sold for development, so there are fewer spaces, which then frustrates the drivers.
We tend now, on some of the hires in built-up areas, to say we will provide the accommodation for our driver, and end up booking them in a Premier Inn somewhere a little further out from town. Besides, if a driver stays with a group in their hotel, the driver still has to park in, say, Tower Bridge, and has to travel to and fro via the London Underground or a taxi anyway. It’s not perfect having to drive out of the city centre, but we’re seeing that more and more, especially in bigger places and at some of the Victorian resorts.
Another example is the reduction of coach parking in Bourton-on-the-Water. That’s been postponed, but it’s going to come – that’s going to be a place where, if that site is developed in whatever way, it will generate a lot of income.
Another problem is with motorway services. As they have been developing, parking has reduced – we now see Costa Coffee shops, Greggs, and other pop-up venues that once would be housed solely within the services building, but now occupy drive-through
satellite buildings that take up additional space. We notice that the actual parking facilities at service stations – not just for coaches but for cars, trucks and everything else, has therefore gradually reduced. That is a concern. It is fine to build these extra facilities – but the developers are not extending the parking at the same time.
We also see coach drivers complaining about hauliers being parked in coach spaces – but then we look at the facilities for hauliers, which are absolutely terrible. Think the coach industry has it bad? In the haulage industry it is shocking.
But there is a great opportunity here, as we evolve in technology, to drive both coach and truck parking forward, especially in city centres where coach parking has gone. Maybe we can develop something that will fit both? As technology evolves, and there are going to be hydrogen fuel cell-electric or commercial battery-electric vehicles that need charge points, there will have to be infrastructure put in place for these sorts of vehicles. Do we put both the coaches and trucks there, and provide a site with decent facilities for drivers?
Any long-term solution to parking facilities for coaches needs to incorporate the future technology that we’re going to be fitting – otherwise, we will simply have a short-term fix. The major driver of long-term development for coaches and trucks will be the technology employed, and how to fill those vehicles with electricity or hydrogen. Maybe it is worth combining both at the same time, and making commercial vehicle parks outside city centres and popular areas.
