On 08 Jan 2009 01:23:30 GMT, (Andrew
Gabriel) wrote:

In article ,
Derek Geldard writes:
On Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:07:12 GMT, "The Medway Handyman"
wrote:


Medway Council seem set upon driving business away from the town centre, car
parking charges are horrific. Bearing in mind Chatham town centre is
between Bluewater & Hempstead Valley shopping centers - both of whom offer
free parking.

Parking charges are enforced 6 days a week until 10pm,

The message is :

"Come in a car ? **** off somewhere else we don't want you"

Yes, Dunstable did that when I was working in that area in the
80's/90's. The customers did **** off, shortly followed by any shops
worth visiting (and it did have a very good shopping centre until
that point). It now has a high street full of derelict empty
premises, except for the boozing establishments which are all
that's left in the town centre. When I first worked there, there
were 3 supermarkets in the town centre (Waitrose, now a derelict
Kwiksave, Tescos, now a derelict gym, and Sainsburys, now a Wilinsons),
plus a Co-op department store (demolished and replaced by a row of
shops, now mostly empty), and a number of excellent independant
specialist shops (notably clothing and kitchen/cooking), all now
derelict.

Sounds very much like the way the nearest town to me is heading.

What happened is that the copious free car parking attracted a
class of shopper from the outlying villages which allowed such a
town centre to thrive. Once those shoppers ****ed off, you're left
with a very much smaller customer base who can walk into the centre
of town, plus a completely different class of customer who comes in
by bus, neither of whom can sustain a thriving shopping centre, and
it all folded.

Agreed. But I do wonder why people are prepared to drive a 70+ mile
round trip just to get free parking?

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