FURTHER to your invitation to comment on Alan Quick’s recent article on parking charges / meters on Crediton High Street I would like to respond as follows:

As we all know, local traders and café owners within the town are suffering due to rising costs on just about every front and are barely scraping by, if it wasn’t for Charity shops there would be a four or five empty premises in the High Street.

If parking charges are levied on vehicles parked for maybe more than 20 or 30 minutes this is going to drive more shoppers to the edge of town larger retailers, and more people seeking a coffee, tea, or lunch again to  those larger premises such as Garden Centres.

One of the reasons these businesses are so popular in this respect is of course the “Free Parking”. How convenient it is for many of us.

If one parks in the high street to do shopping or possibly buy “take away” food such as fish and chips or a Chinese then the chance of doing that within a 20 minute or even half-an-hour time span is slim if not impossible.

Try parking and visiting maybe the three shops for the items you need, or queue for fish and chips, all within the suggested time frames!

You will need to buy a parking ticket and so increase the cost of your shopping or meal by a least £1.

So off to the large out of town retailer we go for shopping and in the not to distant future maybe to McDonald’s and avail of the free parking.

So the possibility that the shutters will go up for the last time on another shop or “chippy” are increased.

I find it amazing that County and Area councils seem quite willing to sign the death warrant of so many of our rural town centres throughout all Counties in their bid to extort money from car owners for who, in many cases, the car is their only mode of transport, especially when so many of them are pensioners drawing a State Pension as their only means of support. 

It would revitalise these town centres if all parking was free, even the car parks for selected days, but I guess that’s just a dream.

Please DCC leave us with our 45 minutes of free parking on the High Street at least. 

Crediton Resident

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