| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Reply | |
| Posted by: | Tom Pike | |
| Date/Time: | 22/07/23 09:23:00 |
| Penny, what is undoubtedly true is that shop owners who claimed that car access and parking are essential to their businesses on Devonshire Road have also been happy to park their own cars in them for much of the time. Further, a nearby hospitality owner owner pinned their Sundays with low covers on the markets and the lack of parking had in fact miscalculated. Covers were in fact lowest on Sundays when there was unimpeded parking on the Old Market Place. Further, a couple of traders on Turnham Green Terrace kindly provided me with their turnover figures for the period of the most intensive restrictions during COVID and both sets of figures showed no discernible change when parking was withdrawn. That local evidence mirrors other studies that show retailers consistently overestimate the proportion of customers who reach them by car. It doesn’t matter how much retailers profess to care about the environment if when push comes to shove they are unwilling to look beyond discredited arguments about the primacy of car access. I can therefore well understand Paul’s frustration that when a clear opportunity was there to really make a step change in improving the environment on Devonshire Road, both physically and in terms of attracting customers, those tired arguments, rather than being challenged, won out. |