'Sadness, madness and disbelief': Reaction as new car parking charges come into play across North Kirklees - including Cleckheaton and Birstall
A Cleckheaton business owner has slammed Kirklees Council for “solving a problem that didn’t need to be solved” after new car parking charges were implemented in the town.
The council’s decision to roll out the controversial fees at 15 car parks across the borough - including Birstall, Batley and Mirfield, as well as Cleckheaton - came into force on January 1.
In Cleckheaton, where the community united with the ‘Stop The Meters’ campaign last April, charges have been brought in at Crown Street and Church Street (behind the town hall) where the first two hours are free before charges commence at 80p per hour up to three hours. It is then £3.30 for five hours and £6.50 for over five hours.
At the town’s main car park on Bradford Road, St John’s Car Park, the first two hours are free before charges start at 80p per hour.
And, despite the wintry weather North Kirklees experienced last week, local business owners have already started to see a negative impact.
Mark Hepworth, who owns Robert Openshaw Fine Jewellery in Cleckheaton, has told the Reporter Series that two of the town’s car parks where the fees have been brought in have been virtually empty, with vehicles now clogging the streets which he believes could cause trouble for the emergency services.
“There’s a sadness inside me to see the car parks empty,” he said. “Kirklees solving a problem that didn’t need to be solved - it is just disbelief really. In ‘solving’ that problem they have created more problems that now need attention if anything. And it just gets people's backs up.
“I have had a walk around the three car parks today (Monday), the main Bradford Road car park is full of cars in and out for the free two hours, but behind the town hall is virtually empty. At Crown Street, there were seven cars parked there.
“Elsewhere is just churned up. Tofts Road underneath the railway bridge, down Church Street going to Mann Dam. It’s causing people who are looking for free parking to double park. People are hunting out all the free spaces. I just find it madness.
“The reality is when you have seven cars in one car park and two in the other, and over 100 empty parking spaces, it’s not generating the income that Kirklees really want from it.
“(Free parking) gets the vast majority of the cars off the street, where they’re not churning up streets where residents live or they’re stopping an ambulance from getting to one of the major nursing homes or a fire engine.
“I am just in disbelief.”
Similar charges have also come into force at High Street car park in Birstall - and business owners report an equivalent tale.
“We have been monitoring the car park and it has been empty,” claimed Donna Pailing, owner of The Cobbles cafe in Market Place. “Before it would be full all day. Come ten o’clock it would be full. The most we have counted in there now is six cars. The side streets are busier.”
She added: “We were quite lucky compared to Cleckheaton or Batley as we only got one car park that they have decided to charge in. But people are refusing to pay it because, before, that car park would have been full.
“It looks to me like they’re not going to get any money out of that car park at all. People just don’t want to pay.
“But it worries me that if they do introduce it into other car parks then people will start going to the likes of Morley where they don't have to pay.”