Blog: Charges will kill Wem
Friday 10th September 2010, 11:48AM BST.
Exactly who is intended to benefit from proposed parking charges in Wem?
Based on the turnout at a meeting last night, Wem residents certainly don’t think it’s them.
Around 100 attended to hear the plans which would see charges in High Street, Leek Street and Mill Street.
What they said is a now familiar cry. Parking charges, they said, will kill the town.
People will stop coming and shops will be hit. As many motorists will know, Wem does already labour under inherent disadvantages, with its narrow streets and awkward junctions. Yes, you can find yourself in a traffic jam in Wem.
Yet treating motorists like an enemy is a risky business. Motorists are not enemies, but friends to places like Wem – they are generally the locals themselves, or people from surrounding hamlets and villages who pop in to Wem to shop and do business of one sort or another.
The charges are among proposals set out in a draft parking strategy produced by Shropshire Council in July.
They smack of what might be termed “unitary thinking”. But the small towns of Shropshire do not lend themselves easily to a one-size-fits-all approach.Shoppers in Shrewsbury don’t begrudge reasonable parking charges, not that they have much choice.
In Wem? There is a choice. They can go elsewhere. So we are back to the fundamental question which has to be at the heart of the decision-making: What good will parking charges do for Wem?
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A typically blinkered approach by Wem council yet again. Years ago they hiked up the rents and rates paid by local traders eventually forcing many to close now, with the few remaining struggling to survive, they seek to alienate the people who do use them by introducing charges for parking on parking grounds which were paid for by the ratepayers.
I’ve got a better idea, on every approach road to Wem, erect prominent signs saying, ” Welcome to Wem but sorry we are closed”. It soon will be if the inept council has it’s way. R.I.P. Wem.
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Colin , pay attention. It is not Wem Town Council that has made the suggestion to introduce car parking charges across North Shropshire…. it is Shropshire Council. It is the County consultation which needs a response by E mail and written comment to the Shropshire Council website or CEO. If we all write in perhaps one size will not fit all!
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