The Horsell's Mouth Politics, pedantry and personal interests

It’s not often that Woking Borough Council considers petitions – there are only a couple each year. One of the more outlandishly ridiculous is going in front of the Executive on Thursday.

“WOKING COUNCIL PUTS TOWN CENTRE SHOPS AT RISK. That’s right, the recent increase in car parking charges means that we are now paying the same as the county town of Kingston and more than neighbours Guildford.

“As a result footfall is down considerably, businesses are suffering and many jobs are at risk. Please help to stop this madness now by signing our petition to reduce Woking’s car parking rates to a sensible level and help breathe some life back into our town centre.”

The author of the petition – who for some reason is allowed to remain anonymous in the council report – is from the Sony shop in Wolsey Place. His original idea was to place the Woking Borough Council logo on the petition, which made it look official when it wasn’t. If we ignore this and the various inaccuracies in the petition (eg Guildford is the County Town not Kingston and parking charges in Guildford are comparable at 90p per hour, charged per hour rather than half-hour) then we can look past the hyperbole and bluster to the real cause of the problem.

We are in the middle of the worst recession since the war. Research shows that more people are saving money rather than spending it. There are fewer people buying and using a car. Okay, so no-one likes increases in car parking charges. But does the petitioner not think that reduced footfall in Woking might not be more affected by the economic downturn?

And futhermore, does he not realise that his stupidly overpriced electonics, which in my view differ very little in quality to cheaper Korean and other Japanese brands, are not really the thing that people want to buy in this climate? And what has he done in order to attract shoppers into his store? The fact is that car parking charges are nothing to do with Sony not being able to shift more £1,000 tellies in Wolsey Place Shopping Centre. In my view, it’s the wrong shop in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The council has invested a great deal of money into the town centre to keep it developing. We now have an improved Next store with Cargo going into the old Next unit and there are further negotiations ongoing with another top retail name. To say that the council is killing the town is just nonsense. This petition needs to take the plank out of its own eye before removing the speck from the council’s.

Update 15/10: At the meeting, the executive decided to commit to a £3 all-day rate on Sunday, which should start to take effect in mid-November, although it’ll start even earlier if the Liberal Democrats can agree not to call it in. My own view is that this will have little impact on Sony’s ability to shift their Bravia TVs and £300 digital cameras because people willing to pay that much won’t care about £5 on parking. But the petitioner claimed he was speaking for all businesses who wanted to see increased footfall, expecially on Sunday.

Let’s hope his analysis, which has brought forward an idea already being considered by the executive, was correct.