The Unionists say: don't be fooled!

First, a quick Boxing Day walk round Highbury Villas, which will not be in the CPZ/RPZ, but which our data implies is popular with last-minute student parking. Over Xmas, all the residents have vanished, so we can see how lovely the streets look on a sunny morning.

A bicycle chained to a fence is the sole vehicle parked on one side of a road.

The main entrance route is clear. Strange. There is so much space it is unnatural.

Similarly, St Michael's Hill -CPZ/RPZ boundary, is devoid of all traffic and nearly all cars. It looks like a place lost in time.


And speaking of lost in time, here is the note from the unionists, with comments inline. Comment in italics from the perspective of Kingsdown, where the zone is weekdays, 9-5. The doc is transcribed as is, including not enough commas but lots of apostrophies, all in what appears to be the correct place.

Don't be fooled by Residents' Parking

Think Residents' Parking would improve your life? Don't be fooled

If Residents' Parking came to your street or one nearby:

1. There would be absolutely no guarantee of finding a space. Ask friends in cities like Bath that have Residents' Parking schemes -you can pay for a permit but still find nowhere to park.
The message here is that this won't fix the parking problem. True, but what do they propose as an alternate solution? Congestion Charging? Also, you aren't going to find anywhere to park on a weekday today so this will not make parking in Kingsdown worse.


2. There would be fewer spaces. Streets would be tidied and hundreds of spaces would be lost making parking, especially at night, more difficult.
If this means that existing rules about pavement and corner parking are enforced, then good. Those spaces were not legal anyway.

3. Fewer spaces would mean parking spilling over into neighbouring streets -causing problems where none exist today.
Parking problems exist in Cotham everywhere south of the railway line; this will not make things worse there during working days. It may make things worse evenings/weekends, but for those in the zone, it is not their problem. The people in the streets that may be affected get to make their own choice, and it is not for Kingsdown residents to feel guilty.

4. House prices would drop as parking becomes more difficult.
Currently off-street parking commands a premium and justifies the effort. An RPZ would eliminate the value of this premium, but should not impact house prices. Parking will not become more difficult for residents -it will become easier.

5. Residents, businesses and visitors would all have to pay to park or risk being towed away -adding extra costs in the worst economic situation for over 50 years. Local businesses would suffer and maybe close.
There will be more short-term pay-to-park parking than currently. All the Kingsdown parking spaces during daytime are occupied by commuters, leaving only the zebra crossings for short term visitors to local businesses.

6. The council may limit each household to one vehicle. Even if that is OK for you now, what if your circumstances change?
There is an assumption here that everyone has at least one car. The RPZ costs are a reason to reduce the number of household cars., not increase them.

7. Your household would be limited to just 100 visitor's permits per year. For a family of four, that's fewer than 2 visits each per month!
During working hours, nobody comes by car today, as there is nowhere to park, so that is 2 visits/week more than zero.

8. Builders and other tradesmen would use up your permits. Even a simple builder's job could use up a month's supply of permits.
Whoever wrote this hasn't had to deal with the double-parking builder problem you get today.

9. A family wedding or funeral could use up all your visitor permits for a year!
There is no way today that a family wedding or funeral would permit visitors to Kingsdown on a week day. So this would still be an improvement. Then there are weekends.

10. There would be more yellow lines, road signs, traffic-wardens and tow-trucks -do you really want this?
Bristol Traffic would like existing yellow lines and road signs to be enforced, along with rules about parking on corners, pavements and in front of schools, without waiting for a CPZ/RPZ rollout. It is a shame that Keep Parking Free does not consider those to be issues, but since they have fought the rollout of a zebra crossing designed to provide a safe walk to Christchurch School, Clifton, you can guess what their point of view there is.


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The organisation has  their own web site: http://www.keepparkingfree.org/
It's in a nice pretty green colour.