Poole is, as it's own advertising suggests, a beautiful place. It also has a beautiful quayside with the option of taking boat trips to various lovely locations which indeed I did today. Of course, the spanner in the works is parking in Poole. It is not a problem of not enough spaces but instead the rapacious manner in which parking charges are levied. If you go on a fairly short boat trip you are likely to pay five pounds to park ON A SUNDAY! I do not know whether they are in some sort of competition with Bournemouth as to the exploitation of their populace, not to mention the negative impact on town centre businesses. As trade moves away to places like Castle Point I can only feel pity for town centre businesses who are treated by councils as if everything will be alright when patently it is not. However, if any competion over parking charges is to be held, then the runaway winner must surely be Weymouth where charges apply in the town centre even at 3am in January! Their failure to liase effectively with the RSPB at Radipole and the Fleet nature reserve demonstrates an environmental hypocracy. Pull over to look at the wildlife by all means - but don't forget to pay your 2 hours parking extortion.
For my readers who come from out of this area please remember that Dorset is beautiful and is a must to visit. But please, especially in Weymouth, budget in the cost of parking. I say this with shame in my heart as I love this place and hate to say things negative about it.
Unfortunately, parking policy has been a subject of much debate in the local press over some years but all that ever seems to happen is more increases. The effects are becoming clear. In the East of the county residents are spending more time at weekends at Garden Centres or out of town shopping centres like Castle Point. In Weymouth, if you have reasonable access to Dorchester, where charges are tolerable, then you go there instead. And on top of all this we have the rise of internet shopping. So, just as town centres need the public to be there they are discouraged from going there. I can only expect that the Councils will continue to be "behind the curve" and at some time in the future they will have to react too late to the fact that peoplle do not want to go there anymore. Already we have many charity shops (great for charity, but what does it say about the health and viability of conventional businesses in the area?), a plethora of mobile phone shops (when it is cheaper and easier to get them on the 'net), a range of banks and building societies at a point in our history when more and more banking is done online, in such a way as you never need to visit a branch. What does that leave? What we need is a set of policies to suck in a variety of businesses to town centres to prevent their future demise, and I am afraid charging them the earth in order to look at mobile phone shops and walk past banks they don't need anymore is not the answer.
I could not agree more,I will be visting Weymouth a bit later in the next month and this will be the first time for nearly 3 years as we used to vist every year but the since the charges have increased and they stopped the free parking for Blue badge owners (except for the High rate of DLA and not for the lower rate etc)the cost to park in Weymouth can be quite high and so this puts off people or takes the money away from the traders in the town to more visitor friendly areas,you may catch people as one a one off but will people return on a regular basis and keep paying higher charges,I have seen the decline in the Town when we came regular and it will be interesting to see if it has got better or worse.