I spotted recently that the Bear’s Paw in Frodsham is planning to introduce pay and display parking on its car park, with the price of a ticket refundable for food and drink in the pub. I can’t say I blame them, really, as the pub is right in the centre of the town and its car park must be overwhelmed by shoppers during the week. In fact I’m surprised we don’t see more of this, as there are plenty of pubs in busy locations whose car parks seem to be seen as fair game by non-customers. It can cause ructions with the local community, though.
Mind you, across the road from the Bear’s Paw is the Golden Lion, a Sam Smith’s pub that doesn’t have its own car park, and given that the beer in there is around a pound a pint cheaper you still wouldn’t be out of pocket even if you paid the charge.
One local pub that has had pay and display for some years is the Airport Hotel near Manchester Airport, which was finding itself inundated by plane spotters.
The Boar's Head in Middleton has a large car park which is free to customers and will get non customers clamped. It is fair enough as paying customers couldn't get in while non customers parked free.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how long before they are accused of encouraging drunk driving.
ReplyDeleteWell, I don't see how the presence or absence of pay and display parking is going to make any difference to the level of drunk driving.
ReplyDeleteBut no doubt some tosser will come out with the familiar canard of "why do pubs have car parks in the first place?"
The car park is empty at night. Its the lunchtime eating trade they are bothered about. Fair point though.
ReplyDeleteWhy do car parks have pubs?
ReplyDeleteThis scheme has now come into operation – it's £1 for 3 hours, £5 for all day, applying 6 am – 6 pm seven days a week, with the £1 charge refundable in the pub. As I said, you can't blame them, really, although paradoxically it is possible it might lead to an increase in parking by non-customers as they may feel that charging for parking legitimises it and they are no longer being a bit sneaky. There's a well-known case where a nursery in Israel started fining parents who picked their children up late, which actually led to more of them doing it as they felt it was a reasonable charge to pay for the privilege.
ReplyDelete