Bognor Regis Civic Society - Free Parking is Here!

IT HAS TAKEN THIRTEEN MONTHS of continuous action, pressure and struggle since CiViC first issued its proposal paper for two-hour free parking in Bognor Regis, but now we are delighted to report that Arun District Council have permitted a one-year pilot scheme to go ahead from 1st December 2011.

TO PARK FREE OF CHARGE you need a special disc on which you set your time of arrival and then leave it visible inside your windscreen. Your car may then stay there free of charge for two hours, but after that you must either go elsewhere or pay the normal charge.

THIS IS ONLY AVAILABLE in two car parks in Bognor Regis, and it is not available for on-street parking which remains unchanged. The two car parks are the Fitzleet multi-storey, accessed off Queensway, and the Lyon Street car park, which is almost opposite the Laburnum Centre. They are signposted, and further signs are to be put up to help people find them.

TO OBTAIN A FREE PARKING DISC go to any of the participating retailers. The nominal price is £1, which is a bargain in itself seeing as it has unlimited use all year and could save you a great deal of money. However, you never know, if you buy something from the retailer he might give you a disc free of charge!

THE PARTICIPATING RETAILERS ARE: Unique Printing and Embroidery : Leaders : Cash Converters : Niche Cafe : Appliance Centre : Heaps of PCs : Keith Jay Ltd : Reynolds : Second Chance : London Stores : Claydens : Little Shop of Secrets : Polkadot Stripes : The Picturedrome Cinema : The Regis Centre : Kampos Cycles : Lock Centre : Sight and Sound : Heygates Paperback Exchange : Print-In : James Jewellers : Cornerstone Computers : Town Hall : Visitor Information Centre :

A FREE SHOPPERS GUIDE MAP is also available from these retailers, showing the locations of the car parks and all the participating shops.

IT TOOK FIFTEEN MONTHS of continuous action, pressure and struggle since CiViC first issued its proposal paper for two-hour free parking in Bognor Regis, but we are delighted to report that Arun District Council finally permitted a one-year pilot scheme to go ahead from 1st December 2011.

TO OBTAIN A FREE PARKING DISC go to any of the participating retailers. The price is £1 (UPDATE: £2), which is a bargain in itself seeing as it has unlimited use all year and could save you a great deal of money. However, you never know, if you buy something from the retailer he might give you a disc free of charge!

THE PARTICIPATING RETAILERS ARE: Unique Printing and Embroidery : Leaders : Cash Converters : Niche Cafe : Appliance Centre : Heaps of PCs : Reynolds : Second Chance : London Stores : Claydens : Little Shop of Secrets : Polkadot Stripes: The Regis Centre : Kampos Cycles : Lock Centre : Sight and Sound : Heygates Paperback Exchange : Print-In : James Jewellers : Cornerstone Computers : Town Hall : Visitor Information Centre.

A FREE SHOPPERS GUIDE MAP is also available from these retailers, showing the locations of the car parks and all the participating shops.

It took fifteen months since we started our Free Parking campaign in September 2010. Fifteen months of continuous effort, strategy and persuasion, a 5,807 signature petition, an election, and the combined efforts of all the major Bognor Regis representative groups. In fact everybody was in favour of it except most of the ruling political group on Arun District Council and the nebulous little band who call themselves Brighter Bognor. The petition forced Arun to debate it, and their decision was to “note it.” Bognor Regis Town Council added to the pressure by creating a Working Group which Arun couldn’t ignore, and Arun finally offered to allow free parking in just two car parks, Lyon Street and the Fitzleet multi-storey. They would not agree to extend this to the other two car parks, being the Regis Centre and Hothamton.

The Town Council, although dissatisfied with this, agreed to it because further argument would have caused delay and nothing would have been in place by Christmas. We are prepared to go along with that for the moment, but we wish to see an immediate review towards extending the scheme to all the Town Centre car parks.

INSULT TO BOGNOR REGIS

But to us, this offer by Arun is something of an insult to Bognor Regis. Firstly, it ignores the clear wishes of 5,807 people who signed to ask for free parking in all the Town Centre car parks — everybody knows that a half-cut scheme like this will just confuse and annoy visitors. Secondly, this amounts to less than half the value of the free parking offer in Littlehampton — the hourly value of the free spaces there is £267.40, yet in Bognor Regis it is just £123.90. And whereas there the offer is the three major ground level car parks, here it is a multi-storey nobody likes and the smallest of the three ground levels.

Arun had insisted on parity between the two towns yet for the same money Littlehampton has a far better scheme. And in view of the fact that Bognor Regis is a larger town with a larger population and a larger Council Tax input and more empty shops, we feel that at the very least we should have an equal value scheme.

And lastly, Arun has failed to grasp that this is a REGENERATION proposal, designed to bring new visitors to the Town. A penny pinched arrangement like this will not be helpful to this, and very likely will upset those who do come because they won’t be able to find a space – or will get a fine because they’ll think one of the other car parks is free. Arun naively thinks signs will solve this but, as we’ve seen with Morrison’s, people don’t always see the signs.

SOME WAY TO GO

So we still have some way to go if we are to get a half-decent two-hour free parking scheme for Bognor Regis. Meanwhile, we are keeping most of the information relevant to this and the May 2011 election on these pages for a while yet, as readers may wish to relate what Councillors say NOW to what they said THEN. The Councillors often forget, but we don’t... Click on Free Parking plus FAQ to learn more.

SO THERE IS MORE WORK TO BE DONE

As mentioned above, we have to make sure that as many people as possible make use of the scheme to come into the town, enjoy our facilities, visit our shops, and keep coming back again and again.

We also have to keep reminding Arun that this is an unfair and unequal deal for Bognor Regis. Littlehampton has a far better scheme and we want to be treated equally. You’ve seen the facts above, write to your Councillor and demand action on this, ring him/her up and insist on knowing when action is going to be taken on this. Be polite, but don’t take no for an answer.

Also, West Sussex County Council charge for on-street parking in parts of the Town - and we are the only town in Arun that has this, all the others are free. We now have to persuade them to drop this out of : 1) fairness and equality with the other towns, and 2) willingness to support the regeneration of the Town. There are County Council elections in 2013, so now is the time to be reminding all existing West Sussex County Councillors and potential candidates of what we want.

OUR MESSAGE TO EVERYONE IS : USE IT OR LOSE IT!

Go out and get a disc and start using it as soon and as often as possible. Encourage your friends, relatives, neighbours and everyone you know to do the same. We want the available spaces to be as full as possible most of the time so that we can point to its success and say to Arun that we need more spaces in the other car parks.

If we don’t all do this, and the available spaces aren’t fully used, Arun will claim the scheme isn’t wanted, isn’t needed, doesn’t work, and will discontinue it. Please support us and make the scheme a success!