Knowing in advance the best way to deal with this parking issue?

nigelbb

As fisherjim explains this is just capitalism in action. The pub has a facility that you want to use that has been free up until now. Having seen the demand for parking they are perfectly entitled to charge for parking. They could have been really mean & made parking free but for customers only. Then issued £100 charges to everyone dropping their kids off. At least you have the option of paying.

Look on the bright side if the scrum in the pub car park is typical of that outside every other primary school the poor parking attendant will only be able to issue tickets to a few of you every morning & every evening.

Any tickets issued can probably be cancelled at POPLA as dropping off the kids can literally only take a couple of minutes so must be within the 'grace period' that all car parks run by BPA Ltd members must have. From the BPA ltd CoP:-

13 Grace periods
13.1 Your approach to parking management must allow a driver who enters your car park but decides not to park, to leave the car park within a reasonable period without having their vehicle issued with a parking charge notice.
13.2 You should allow the driver a reasonable ‘grace period’ in which to decide if they are going to stay or go. If the driver is on your land without permission you should still allow them a grace period to read your signs and leave before you take enforcement action.
13.3 You should be prepared to tell us the specific grace period at a site if our compliance team or our agents ask what it is.
13.4 You should allow the driver a reasonable period to leave the private car park after the parking contract has ended, before you take enforcement action.

http://www.britishparking.co.uk/write/Documents/AOS/AOS_CoP_June_2013_update.pdf

Blues_skies

Okay, so maybe if that applies there would be no reason for me, who has to drive on a certain day, arranging to meet another mum who had walked at the entrance to the car park. I could pull in, 'look at the signs' while my child gets out and goes to the safety of that other mum who then walks my child into school with her, and then I decide not to park and pull off?

There are older children whose parents will no doubt adopt this system. Plus its theoretically possible with one child. Slightly more problematic with two younger children who need to go to two different classes!

My child in the nursery year still actually gets taken into the building and handed over to a teacher; probably takes more than a 'grace period' to do particularly if you have another child to drop as well. I suppose 10 minutes would be deemed as outside the grace time.

I did say up thread that I wondered how many tickets the officer could issue in 10 minutes, but being as though I have a company car who automatically pay any fines and argue later, I don't think I can risk this (if it was my own car, I would!)

JimmyTheWig

Blues_skies wrote: »

Also am thinking too that its unfair that you can't pay in incremental slots I.e. 15, 30, 45, 60, 120 minutes etc.

Their land, their rules I would have thought. Many places have a minimum of an hour.
A few years back I parked in a pay-on-exit car park without (naughty me) checking the charges. When I came to leave after less than an hour I found the minimum charge was something like £6 for 4 hours. Grrr.

By charging a minimum of an hour

Is it £1 an hour? I got the impression it was £1 per visit. What do pub customers get refunded?

its clear they aren't even trying to see our side.

Again, why would they? It's their land.
You've got to come up with a plan that makes them more profit or they're not going to be interested. Probably by showing that school families are good customers who would stop being good customers if they follow through with these plans.

How about free parking for school drop-offs/pick-ups in exchange for a note on the school website - "Thanks to our neighbours, the Dog and Duck, for letting us use their car park. Please park, and drink, responsibly." with a link to the pub?

HO87

At the risk of inviting the opprobrium of the entire board I find myself with a degree of sympathy for the operators of the pub.

Firstly, they are likely to have fallen for the sales pitch of the PPC: "We'll solve your parking problems and provide you with an additional revenue stream - all at no cost to you". That, in essence, is how PPC's obtain the opportunities to set up what amounts to tax-farming schemes. The pub will ultimately be as much a victim (in terms of lost custom and goodwill) of the PPC as the recipients of any PCN's.

Secondly, an assumption is being made that parents parking to drop off and collect children from the local school is the only issue. It may not be as I illustrate below.

Until recently I lived in a narrow local road less than 50m from the entrance to the local junior school and 150m from the entrance to the local infants. About 3 years ago we noticed that there was a sudden increase in vehicles being parked in the road for the whole day. It took us about a week to discover that the cause of this was the takeover of the local railway station car park by APCOA and the change from free to £6+ per day charges. This made the parking situation in our road even worse as the 20-30 vehicles parking all day that had not been there before substantially squeezed the space available for parents collecting/dropping off.

The traffic problems that ensued, with congestion at the junction of our road and the "A" road were so marked that the local council painted DYL's close to the junction and around the school entrances further constraining the spaces available to railway users and parents. Fortunately the local pub landlord saw the opportunity and started to charge railway users just £2.50 a day (for a weekly ticket) but that didn't make that big a dent in the congestion.

The problem revolved around parents who seemed to think that their little darlings just had to be delivered to the school door. The trouble was that all the parents felt the same way. I very often worked from home (my hours were never 9-5) and have sat in my driveway for long periods waiting for mothers (it is principally mothers) to return to their cars they had thoughtfully parked directly in front of my gates. Sometimes it was just a few minutes but on several occasions I gave up waiting after 15 minutes or so and returned to my desk where I could actually be productive.

Together with several neighbours we approached the school and, cutting a long story short, the school took up the suggestion of organising a "walking bus" and incorporated into its route several stops close to junctions to allow parents to drop children off and so pick up the walking bus. Is that something that might work here?

It didn't entirely cure the problem but it did significantly reduce the time the problems continued through the morning and afternoon. There will always be those who feel that nothing applies to them or their children (I feel for those children).

As I've set out, might it not be that whilst the OP is aware of the school drop-off/collection issues at the pub that other problems - like that with the overflow from the railway station parking above - may apply?

Herzlos

Another thought it that if no-one parks during these times, the PPC will lose a lot of money as there's no payments or 'fines', despite having to pay 2 patrol staff. If you can ignore the car park for long enough (by using something like a walking bus or the walking equivalent of car pooling), then they may drop the thing entirely or at least stop enforcing it.

Presumably at the school run times the car park is empty anyway so they'll get zero revenue but £40+ a day in running costs (4 hours of minimum wage staff), and after a few weeks they may be open to some sort of negotiations.

Coupon-mad

Just came back to suggest a 'walking bus'. I think this should be school-led and needs Council support for it.

As you don't work every day could you put the idea to the Headteacher with other parents who could also offer a day; you could each offer to take your turn with other parents if you can all get this off the ground.

Blues_skies

Thank you. I am going to suggest the walking bus to the head even if it wouldn't work for us. I happily do two school days on foot and don't use the car generally on my non-working days anyway, but on working days I still need to get in the car at an early time to get another younger baby to nursery as well (I drop the baby at nursery and then older ones at school straight afterwards) so on those days the walking bus wouldn't help. Plus our school starts a year early (our LA funds full time places for a pre-reception year) so some of the children on the 'bus' would be as young as 3.5 (including mine) and I personally wouldn't feel happy at that age including them on such a scheme.

However overall for the school I think it's a brilliant idea, and I will be suggesting it!

peter_the_piper

Herzlos wrote: »

Another thought it that if no-one parks during these times, the PPC will lose a lot of money as there's no payments or 'fines', despite having to pay 2 patrol staff. If you can ignore the car park for long enough (by using something like a walking bus or the walking equivalent of car pooling), then they may drop the thing entirely or at least stop enforcing it.

Presumably at the school run times the car park is empty anyway so they'll get zero revenue but £40+ a day in running costs (4 hours of minimum wage staff), and after a few weeks they may be open to some sort of negotiations.

They will find a way to screw the pubs own customers to fill the gap. Over or on the line sir? Kerching thays a fine.

Blues_skies

Update:

They've backed down!!!!

I had no contact from the brewery so went to the local paper. They came out today and got quotes from other school parents at the gates. Amazingly the brewery called me tonight.... And have agreed that the system and the costings are unreasonable.

They're suspending the due start date of the charges (tomorrow) and have agreed to meet the school and guaranteed that they will not go ahead with any charges or systems until the school is happy. They like the idea of the 15 minute option or a term permit, and several other options (all of which sound reasonable).

They apologised for the prior attitude involved in the discussions with the school.

Super pleased! :beer: just wonder why it is always me that seems to be the one who has to poke her head above the parapet !!!

JimmyTheWig

Nice one, OP!
Good work going to the local paper; well done not just giving up.