Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Are high parking charges consolidating Green Lanes as an evening economy High Street?
I was chatting with Rob Chau of Tao Sports and the Harringay Traders Association recently and the issue of parking for people to use our high street cropped up.
I've been somewhat resistant to the traders' calls for cheaper parking for visitors to Harringay. Without having given the issue a huge amount of consideration, my sense has been that cheaper parking only goes to serve people who drive to our area from out of town and the more that's facilitated, the more Green Lanes will be shaped to fit them rather then to serve the people who live here.
We're already seeing shops like opticians and recently CS Gas being replaced by yet more restaurants. Will this mean goodbye Disneys and non-food stores?
Rob made the case that high parking charges which cease just before dinner time influence our high street towards an evening oriented economy. It's a recognised issue that parking costs influence high street use. If the charging structure for parking on and around our high street favours evening use, then I suppose it must stand to reason that it may well tip the balance for Green Lanes to consolidate itself as an evening economy.
There must be other examples we can draw on. Does anyone have any knowledge experience of this?
Tags for Forum Posts: high street parking, high streets
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Grant on
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What's missing from all this debate about parking charges is some evidence that trade is affected adversely by higher parking charges (and not by any other factors) that goes beyond the anecdotal. Studies of other high streets around the country have shown that traders often hugely overestimate the amount of their customers that arrive by car.
From my own anecdotal experience the ability to reliably find a parking space is much more important than the cost of parking. I expect this is also true of people who have travelled a significant distance. Higher prices might actually encourage people to park for slightly less time, allowing more people (potential customers) to park their cars throughout the day. San Francisco has experimented with variable parking charges (see http://sfpark.org/) where, as more parking spaces were taken the cost of the remaining spaces became more expensive, reflecting the true market charge of parking and meaning shoppers are more likely to find somewhere to park (which also reduces cruising for parking spaces, reducing congestion, emissions and danger to pedestrians and cyclists).
Interesting point about an evening economy being influenced by free parking, and on the face of it, it seems logical that business operating outside of parking restrictions could benefit. But that also makes the assumption that a significant motivation for someone visiting Green Lanes at night for a meal, above the many other factors that would influence that decision, is the availability of free parking.
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Permalink Reply by ElleCarumba on
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Does not seem to be many academic studies into it. I found this study looking at Bern and Helsinki
http://www.konsult.leeds.ac.uk/private/level2/instruments/instrumen...
My own feelings are that the availability of parking spaces is more of an issue when choosing where to go than the cost of parking there. If you are taking the family for dinner, £3 for parking is a tiny amount compared to what you are going to spend on dinner. Driving around for ages trying to find a cost-free, suitable car parking spot would be far more stressful.
If you are only going to Green Lanes to buy one aubergine and pint of milk, then £3 is loads - but if that is all you were shopping for, why on earth would you drive to Green Lanes rather than walk to your neighbourhood shops?
The gas appliances shop and the opticians are exactly the businesses that are hit by internet shopping. I could buy glasses much cheaper online and shop around for gas appliances too. I would suggest that this is far more deadly to those businesses than parking charges. I am sure the opticians were a nice bunch but so nice that people from far and wide would need to drive to see them instead of going to somewhere more local?
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Permalink Reply by Paul Harvey on
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Regardless of parking charges, there rarely seems to be much free parking space - clearly people are still driving to this area during the day and parking their cars? Unless there's been a study of volumes parking their cars now versus before the recent steep increases to parking fees? Be interesting to see if there has been an impact in that sense.
I might suggest also, that this area is, as most of us are aware, becoming increasingly populated - through all the HMOs etc and houses being converted to flats.... So more people in the area should have an increase in footfall to our local shops, day and night.... Must be good for business. Have local shopkeepers noticed an increase in footfall in that sense?
Ideally, green lanes would be a bustling day and evening economy, good for everyone
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