At a meeting of the Horsham Town Centre Trader’s Guild, in late February 2006, parking dominated. In a bid to placate shopkeepers, the Horsham district councillor who turned up proudly distributed a leaflet declaring “comparative parking costs in town centre car parks”.
This sheet of A4 was a price comparison of parking in town centres in Horsham, Crawley, Worthing, Chichester, Mid Sussex and Guildford.
In this, Horsham looked stunning compared with all others, and, as a result, the Guild members agreed that shopper parking was not a problem – and, indeed, Horsham shoppers were positively advantaged compared with others around.
However, let's take just one example only of a town quoted in HDC’s document: Chichester. …Another charming market town, but without the sea of “to let” signs, and with no suggestion of a slump in shoppers. Let’s look beyond HDC’s figures for reasons why this strange pattern might occur.
The council’s factsheet states, for “shopper parking”:
| Horsham | Chichester | |
| Four hours | £2 | £5.00 |
| Five hours | £2.70 | £10.00 |
| Six hours | £3.50 | £10.00 |
| Seven hours | £6.00 | £10.00 |
| Eight hours | £6.00 | £10.00 |
| Eight hours + | £10.00 | £10.00 |
Well, clearly, then, no comparison – Horsham wins hands-down. Let’s wrap this argument up then, and move on to talk about worker parking (where everyone agreed there WAS a problem, yet the council seemed to be doing nothing about it).
But hold on - on Saturdays, it's £1.20 for all day in Chichester town centre (in the empty West Sussex County Council parking spaces) , and all other days, £2.50.
...so how can both sets of figures be right? The answer is, they can't.
Comparing bananas with bananas - first Chichester:
If you first go to: http://www.chichester.gov.uk/live/travel_and_transport/parking_charges.cfm you will see where HCD had sourced its figures - very selectively indeed - on just 353 parking spaces at the very top end of Chichester’s parking spectrum.
However, if you then look at: http://www.chichester.gov.uk/live/travel_and_transport/car_park_map.cfm …you will see that there is, in fact, a whole raft of parking spaces – 2142 to be precise, and more than six times as many - in four car parks (Basin Rd., New Park Rd, Northgate and Cattle Market) positioned precisely to cater for shoppers (for example, Northgate and the Cattle Market are slap-bang adjacent to the shops in North St and East St respectively; and New Park Rd. actually overlooks the back of restaurants and shops (and leads into several of them though rear entranceways).
Clearly, these car parks have been positioned to deliver shoppers – and thus a shedload of business for retailers - directly onto the heart of the shopping and pedestrianised precincts.
More than 2100 Chichester visitors can step out of their cars, and they do not even have to cross a single street before shopping. Even if they don't want to stay beyond four or five hours, they can relax, have a meal, browse, and drop their purchases in the car from time to time.
So what you will be charged for this truly “adjacent” parking, in Chichester town centre? Even with Horsham's "reduced" all day parking charge of £7, the tables for more than 2100 spaces then become:
| Horsham | Chichester | |
| Four hours | £2 | £2.00 |
| Five hours | £2.70 | £2.50 |
| Six hours | £3.50 | £2.50 |
| Seven hours | £6.00 | £2.50 |
| Eight hours | £6.00 | £2.50 |
| Eight hours + | £7.00 | £2.50 |
…Er, notice any difference?
Comparing bananas with bananas – now Horsham:
We have challenged HDC to show us anywhere anyone can leave their car within walking distance of the town for more than three or five hours, without motorists either being fined, charged £7, or clamped.
If we are wrong, please, of course, correct us immediately.
So what does this mean?
Well, firstly, the council cleary attempted to lie to its retailers, the lifeblood of the community. That is clearly a major insult in itself to these hard-working entrepreneurs, whose jobs are on the line day in, day out (unlike council workers) but – worse still – it confirms that this is a council which considers all those it allegedly “serves” as naïve and totally gullible.
Secondly, based on this one comparison, we would question the entire integrity of the document.
Thirdly, it means that, for £2.50 (and £1.20 on a Saturday) people can drive into Chichester simply without worrying, and with the facility to drop purchases in their car as they go. This luxury would cost £7.00 in Horsham and, as HDC figures also presented at the Guild meeting showed, around a half of one per cent of people opt to pay £7 to park in Horsham … in other words, no one in their right minds would even dream of doing this in Horsham.
So, in Horsham, people clearly stay at home, or go somewhere else to shop, eat, and enjoy themselves.