Disley Car Park Petition

Email to the landlady, 8th January 2013

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Dear Rachel,

I am writing regarding your decision to start charging for use of your car park during weekdays, and the impact it will have on the local community, many of whom are your regular evening and weekend customers. As you are clearly well aware, due to the disproportionally large size of your car park compared to the inadequate station car park, many commuters have no option but to park in your car park, or try and find a space on the street. Please note that the situation is particularly acute at the moment due to Network Rail’s decision to occupy the 12 or so parking places on the far side of the station building with Portacabins for some indeterminate engineering works.

I can assure you that pretty much everybody who currently parks in the car park will chose the street parking option rather than incur further expenses on top of recently inflated rail fares, so if your aim is to open up a revenue stream this is not likely to be realised. My guess, though, is that this is not your aim, and you are more concerned with just stopping people parking in the car park at all. This can only be described as petty, vindictive and totally lacking in community spirit. Your pub is central to the community of Disley and the wider area, and I’ve noticed that you are not afraid to play this up in your marketing, and yet you begrudge the local community the right to a (relatively) hassle-free commute to work.

The move is also total pointless for your point of view - I cannot for one minute imagine that during the hours of 9 to 5 on weekdays you have customers struggling to find parking spaces. This will only result in an empty car park, and congested streets in Disley as people are forced to Park further and further up Buxton Old Road. With the school children being dropped off to get the buses on the main road, and many commuters rushing down from dropping their children off at the popular Blue Grass Purple Cow nursery, it will frankly be chaos, and potentially quite dangerous.

I would suggest that the fair-mined and responsible thing to do would be for you to talk to Network Rail / Northern about arrangements for their customers to park in the lower section of the car-park. The sensible lay-out for the area would be for the lower half of the car park to be for station use, as the 35 or so spaces in the top half are more than enough for a pub of your size. Clearly, historical quirks of ownership have left things different to that, with the pub having around 70 spaces and the station only around 40, but I see no reason that some accommodation could not be arrived at. Indeed I would be interested to know if either side has ever raise the idea of selling or leasing the lower half of the car park?

Clearly nothing is going to change very quickly regarding the situation, so I regret to inform you that, while things remain as they are, with charges being levied for parking, my family and I will no longer be eating or drinking in your establishment. Obviously this saddens me, as I very much enjoy your food and beer, but I’m sure I will find other alternatives… who knows, maybe somebody will open a pub of similar quality in Whaley Bridge one day!

I should also let you know that from the general tone of conversation on the train this morning, I am far from the only person planning to take this position. In fact, am thinking of gathering names in petition so that you can appreciate just how many people are angry about your decision and will similarly no longer be offering you their custom. Maybe if general decency isn’t enough to stop you persisting with this attempt at profiteering, the thought of 40 or 50 of your more affluent customers taking their friends and families elsewhere may give you second thoughts. Though of course, maybe the idea of a nice empty car park on Saturday and Sunday evenings will just spur you on!

Regards

Aidan