Sunday, December 21, 2014

PARKING ON ALBERT STREET, BRIGG

There have been complaints about office, shop and even some council workers parking all day on Albert Street in Brigg, leaving householders without garages no spaces in which to put their cars. One suggestion was to introduce a residents' parking scheme, similar to the one in place near Scunthorpe General Hospital.
The results of the consultation are now in, showing no clear mandate for change.North Lincolnshire Council will be going along with the majority view. So no additional parking restrictions will be coming to this part of town.




3 comments:

Ken Harrison said...

Sometimes the powers that be need to proactive, rather than being reactive to events.
There's been fluctuating on-street parking problems along Albert St for many years.
When NLC's Hewson House was fully operational. there were complaints that NLC staff were taking-up valuable parking spaces.
Now that staffing levels at Hewson House have been reduced, Brigg workers and shoppers are using the street as a free on-street car park.
The future of Station Rd and perhaps Hewson House are in a state of flux. Indeed there are proposals to develop Station Rd to offer some sort of retail/work units....and what will Hewson House become - remain with NLC, or become a significant office block? It's large, now under-used car park seemingly has potential as a candidate for redevelopment.....
In general, the degree of the problem of on-street parking in Brigg is artificially being influenced by the significant, but very temporal, free parking facility alongside the old Lidl's store. Once the store is re-occupied (presently planned for early next year), many folks presently using such a free facility will be displaced onto and into the free on-street parking in the town's surround street - exacerbating the problems of Albert St...and, may I suggest, even the residential roads in the Newland Estate will become victims.
Back to Albert St....there seems to be a divided opinion whether there is a parking problem along the road. Could this be that the section of the road between Albert St's junction with Bigby Rd and New St appears to be more more heavily used for off-street parking than the rest of Albert St. New St seems to the breaking point that alien drivers perceive as the convenient/acceptable walking distance to the town centre.
Wetherspoons will also have a discernible affect on that part of Brigg....although the rtesidents around Queen St et al are already in a permit scheme
Local Albert St residents have to accept that resident parking permits incur a cost....and few things are free.
As we all appreciate, Brigg is a market town and modern development has to evolve around a medieval road core - any waste ground is utilised for housing and there is little, or if any, available space left for extra car-parking space.
Any extra car-parking will have to be created on the periphery of the town - such as the car-parking facilities in the Rec, or at the car-park at the Leisure Centre - could these be offered as free/cheap all-day parking for those Brigg workers who need a car for work?
Without some sort of future plan for in-town parking, Brigg will ever-remain reacting to everyday parking problems and will never really get to grips in resolving medium/long-tern parking problems.

Unknown said...

why not open the station area for carparking.

Ken Harrison said...

Hi Peter....Possibly,there is the under-used NLC's Hewson House car-park - once full, but now almost empty, but Station Rd is an intended site for redevelopment.....
Economically, the land is worth more as a building site than a car-park.
Meanwhile, the open park space to top left is a protected open site.
On a small scale, all-day Wetherspoons' staff will create more pressure for free parking facilities in the area of the pub.....and the re-development of the old Lidl's site - said to start early 2015 - will limit car parking time and those folks using the present all-day free facility will be displaced elsewhere - but where?
Unfortunately, there is a modern day desire to have a parking lot as close as possible to the facility one is visiting - the ultimate of this is a McD's drive-thro'.
Observe the car-park outside a gym - a centre presumably to promote health and fitness - but cars are parked as near as possible to its entrance....