“In my opinion totally the wrong emphasis. Parking should be free, for most of the time, to stimulate retail activity and it is business rates that should make up any reasonable cost of lost revenue. With "at cost" Park n Rides" and more of them.”

“Desenchanter. Its not porn; starts off with the headline...Is Cheltenham Borough Council exempt from parking rules?”

“Openeye - Does the tinyurl link you just posted go to a porn site as I've no idea what relevance it has to this subject without clicking on it ? (it better be a good one if it is lol)”

“Mimigallagher - both authorities are milking the public at the end of the day. I remember not so long ago that the Beechwood arcade was sold to an investment co by the CofE. The investment co then applied to put another tier on the top of the car park to expand the facility, and then bribed the council by offering to flagstone the area outside the front of it on the High st. They then removed a good chunk of time limited parking in the Cambray area and turned it into Double yellows which I would guess was a conditional demand to put in the flagstones and guarantee full occupancy of the Beechwood arcade car park - some of this double yellow area in cambray has since been turned back into pay and display on road parking.

Convinced that they charge motorists for the greater good ? - you might be, but my memory goes back a bit further.....”

“http://tinyurl.com/87ufjtg”

“With the Borough Councils car park revenue at least that is used to fund things in Cheltenham and the alternative is to flog off the car parks for development. The county rake in money from parking on Cheltenham's roads and can spend it in the Cotswolds or anywhere else they see fit. At least if they invested the money raised here back into the town it wouldn't be so bad. And I am getting a bit sick of reading about the parking manager hiding behind what Cheltenham Borough Council allegedly does with their parking to justify what they do. Roads are public highways and are not the same as car parks and yet the county are treating them the same. And the Borough Council has not raised its parking charges for a couple of years while the county has pushed its permit parking charges through the roof.”

“Takeaway - yes, the exec post grads who are the otherwise unemployable product of the education, education policy of the previous government (the education policy would have fallen flat much quicker if the state had not created jobs for them).
All the essential but semi skilled, or unskilled jobs have gone out on compettitive tendering, and most of the council employed workers just act as the overseers of the private sector pelbs doing the actual work.

As for VED, and fuel duty, I am well aware of where it goes to first, but without the motorists being bled so hard, the taxes would have be raised by printing more, taxing harder through general taxation, or reducing the burden by sacking a few more overpaid public sector workers.

Call it what you like VED or road tax (which it was originally called) the principle still stands that you shouldn't have to pay twice for the use of the same thing.”

“Takeaway22 is absolutely correct.

Think about this logically:

Are there considerably more people shopping now than there were a decade ago? I'd say 'No'.

A decade ago, there was no choice – if you wanted to buy something, you went into town and bought it – that means that 100% of people who wanted to buy something did it in a shop.

Is there a choice now? Yes. The shops are still there, but hang on a second – there's another choice now: The internet.

Is the internet used by a considerable number of people? I'd say 'Yes'. If 40% of the people who used to purchase goods in shops now do it on the internet, that's 40% less trade for the shops (and I reckon that the 40% figure is a very conservative guess).

Logically, internet shopping means that less people are using the shops to shop – it's a simple numbers game.”

“NibNobs - So going back to the article, parking prices are not to blame for town traders not making money then. If that was the case, it would be too expensive to meet friends in town and go to town because they are bored as well.

Desenchanter - DVLA Road Tax and fuel duty both end up in the coffers of the Exchequer, along with your income tax and companies' corporation tax. As can be seen, it is therefore very difficult to detail exactly how your road tax is spent, because it is divvied up in the same was as any other tax.
"supplementing CBC's generous 'worker' remuneration package." - I assume you are referring to the executives? We well know that CBC 'on the ground' employees are certainly not generously paid.”

“not just parking charges Takeaway - people just don't have time now a days to wander about window shopping - but as you say some do to see things for real and get it from Argos or online.

The on-line business including eBay although convenient shells out huge amounts to carriers and getting things returned or warranty claims is problematic compared with a face to face deal in a shop. There is also more impulse buying on line compared with taking the pain to visit a shop and spending time doing that.

No easy answers - city centres are dying all around - but parking charges is a major disincentive although not the only reason. If you think about it, city centre shops evolves as people lived close by within walking distance - and out of centre shopping developed as cities expanded and suburbs were developed as also cheaper motoring - in time with increased cost of motoring and more people moving back into towns to avoid commuting, hopefully these shops will come back - In the Metro cities with good public transport - already people are trying motorless living in cramped flats on streets with little or no parking spaces or charged resident parking.

There are government funds for city centre redevelopment - the question is if Chelt council will use that to help the local shops or simply put it in their general cash box squandering on useless projects such as their green agenda whilst at the same time increasing carbon footprint by reducing speed, etc. You need intelligent people to manage the changes - and there is a scarcity in that.”