Disley Car Park Petition

Reply to Rachel Troop, 22nd January 2013

<< Back

Hi Rachel,

Thanks for taking the time to write, I appreciate that this issue has been coming to a head whilst you have been on holiday, and is probably a bit of a handful for you to catch up on.

To be honest I think your email largely repeats what was previously stated in the initial reply from the management team (presumably Mitchells and Butlers people), and doesn’t really address the specific questions I raised in response to that, specifically:

• Why does the pub require 70 spaces to be free, when it is abundantly clear most will be near-permanently empty? The 35 or so spaces in the top half would be more than enough to ensure there is space for your customers, if they were withheld for pub use only.

• What approaches have been made by the pub to the rail companies regarding finding a solution to the station parking problem? As mentioned, I and several others have already been in contact with Northern Rail to address the various causes of the parking problems, but they are very unresponsive, and I would be very interested to know where things had got to with your discussions.

I understand that this is not a profit-making scheme (other than for LPS) – given that you are offering to refund the £2 charge, you will no doubt be left out of pocket in fact, as I’m sure LPS will be hanging on to their share. This just makes the decision seem even more bizarre to me – combined with the amount of goodwill you are losing with a large section of your customer base, any perceived increase in trade due to the availability of parking spaces is unlikely to make up for this. Even if you put prices up to cover the parking refund, that will doubtless reduce trade ever further in today’s economic climate.

I appreciate that you have, belatedly, taken measures to address the needs of local residents and business, but you still fail to appreciate that the positioning in the market of your pub means that local does not equate to Disley. Both the Ram’s Head and Disley station service customers from the wider area, especially going out along the Goyt Valley, yet you continue to maintain what seems a fairly hostile stance to anybody from outside of the village boundaries.

I’m pretty sure that you (or whoever makes the decision) are letting your desire to enforce your legal rights over the car park cloud your judgment. It is a disproportionate solution to an easily resolved situation, a sledgehammer to crack a nut if you like. The use of the car park during weekdays has become an integral part of the arrangements of many of your weekend customers. It is appreciated that this doesn’t give anybody any legal rights to use it, and its access was purely a permissive situation, but taking the facility away causes entirely needless problems for many people. It comes down to the fact that the village will now have a three-quarters empty car park in the middle of it all day, which just can’t be a constructive situation.

To be honest, much as you have in your email, I am just reiterating what has been said a hundred times, and I would be very surprised to hear any answers to the questions I’ve raised at this point. It is clear that you have no intention of making any non-cosmetic changes to the charging system, so I see little point in trying to arrange a meeting – unless you have anything new to add, it doesn’t seem a constructive use of your time or mine. Please do get back to me if you are able to progress the discussion at all though.

Regards

Aidan