The sacred day: Sunday parking

Last month Westminster City Council announced it would be introducing weekday evening and Sunday afternoon parking charges to parts of central London. Although the council claimed that the new parking measures were good for retailers, a number of jewellers have expressed concerns that these charges and others being mooted across London and beyond will only deter shoppers.

The proposals, which were approved on August 1 and will be initially introduced for 18 months, followed a public consultation.

The council said that the measures would ensure the city’s busy West End streets could accommodate high traffic volumes.

Parking charges have been extended to cover Monday to Saturday until midnight, and between 1pm and 6pm on Sundays. It is said that the controls will only apply to a small part of central London.

While a large percentage of jewellery retailers will go unaffected by these specific changes, the threat of Sunday and evening parking charges is causing concern in other areas.

Weekend worries
At two-store London jeweller EC One, co-owner Jos Skeates says that, while parking is free outside his Ledbury Road store in Notting Hill, on Saturdays the shops get very busy
after 1.30pm, when parking becomes free in the general area.

“If they introduced parking charges on a Sunday it would be terrible,” says Skeates. “I don’t think there should be paid parking on a Saturday either because it’s a shopping day.”

Other London retailers have also called on the Government to support local businesses by making parking as easy as possible for shoppers, particularly while ongoing engineering work on London’s underground makes travel tricky.

Harish Raniga, a partner at East London jewellery retailer PureJewels, says that as a committee member of the Green Street Business CIC, an organisation run by traders for the benefit of the owners of businesses on Green Street, a general shortage of parking in the area is already a concern.

Raniga says parking can prove difficult for customers who travel to the shop from further afield than the local area at weekends. At the moment parking on a Sunday is free in the PureJewels vicinity, and Raniga says that introducing charges may deter customers. “We would strongly resist any proposals to do this,” he said.

High traffic levels are also experienced at jewellery hub Hatton Garden. However, Holts managing director Jason Holt says that parking spaces are available as long as people are willing to make the effort.

“My view is that if you are a retailer in central London, your business has to survive on customers who use public transport or are prepared to pay the congestion charge and endure London traffic,” says Holt.

Holt adds that in an ideal world the area would be pedestrianised, but that this is unrealistic because of council requirements to make money from parking revenues, and high security deliveries to the area.

Decision u-turn
Although measures seen to impede weekend footfall are negative for retailers, most understand that councils must make money from parking.

However, Winchester City Council found itself doing a u-turn and agreed in May to suspend Sunday car parking charges, introduced earlier in the year, following a campaign by members of the Winchester Business Improvement District (BID).

Jeremy France, director and owner of Jeremy France Jewellers in Winchester and also chairman of the BID, recognised the council’s need to raise extra funds but said: “I don’t think the shopping in Winchester is strong enough to support it yet.”

The BID also advocated a system where consumers pay when they return to their car rather than when they arrive, so that they do not get caught out by unfair fines.

While some councils are recognising the importance of supporting retailers and local communities when it comes to parking, so too is the Government.

A decision in August means that limits on the number of town centre parking spaces available centrally imposed by the Government will be scrapped to help attract customers to local retailers. The move gives local authorities freedom to decide what parking facilities best support their individual town centre.

Parking gauntlets can create an additional hurdle between shoppers and the tills, a problem often compounded by public transport works. However, with some local councils and the Government recognising the need to support retailers when it comes to decisions on parking restrictions and charges, it looks like many retailers will be in less of a tight spot in terms of customer parking. With the Olympics on the horizon, any measures that make shopping easier for visitors and locals will be welcomed by jewellers.

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