Wimbledon Village Business

The Wimbledon Village Business Association is a network for all types of business in Wimbledon Village and provides networking, general advice and help to lobby local concerns.

It is an extremely valuable business and networking group for the shops and offices in Wimbledon Village.

www.wimbledon-village.com for all local business and retail information.

Loss of 20 minutes free parking (reduced to 10 minutes) in Wimbledon Village and Wimbledon Park.

A meeting was held at Merton Council on 27th October 2011 to review a previous Council decision to reduce free parking from 20 minutes to 10 minutes. The Business Association spoke at the meeting on behalf of more than 100 members to convey our concerns and the potential loss of business (and parking revenue) if people are not attracted to the village. Various businesses spoke along with a number of local residents who kindly gave up their time. Our friends in Wimbledon Park also spoke as the same issues apply.

The severe strain on the public purse and the need to save Council funds, was of course the sole motive for making this change and this is acknowledged by all.

Anecdotal evidence has suggested that an additional funds might be generated by the changes. This did not consider the potential loss of revenue if people are detered from visiting the village. ie The Council have assumed that visitor numbers will remain the same as recent years.

The Business Associations opinion is that the loss of parking revenues will reduce this figure significantly and if people are not inclined to use the village, the figure could be much less, quite apart from the loss of trade, empty shops and all the assocated loss of amenity to the wider community.

The important point the Assocation made, is not the unit cost of the parking but the appeal of the FIRST free 20 minutes, to allow residents and visitors to be attracted to and use the village instead of alternative venues where there is free parking or comparable facilities along side larger shopping centres.

The initial free 20 minutes, has been present for nearly 20 years and the Association knows stimulates use of the village and visitors are likely to return and pay to park for longer periods of time.

The Association and Cllr John Bowcott refrred to Richmonds Councils contrasting approach to stimulate business by offering 30 minutes free parking in ALL Council owned car parks and bays and to strive to remove more yellow lines and find more curb side parking. We have asked Merton Council to look at this contrasting business model to see how it might influence parking revenues.

We advised the meeting that our customers have said they are less likely to use the village if the free parking is reduced and fees are raised further, already the highest in the Borough.

The meeting provided a balanced debate and there was plenty of sympathy and support from all parts of Merton Council  (Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Panel) …………but politics and bottom line budgets won the day as the Councils governing political party all voted in favour is the 10 period on the basis of the severe pressure on the balance sheet.

Whilst the Business Association understand this we were very disappointed that the factual information from the Business community did not appear to be considered and there were no Council proposals to consider the wider business and community losses for the time being.

On a more positive note the Association hope to work with the Council to find more parking spaces and like Richmond, we hope to pursuade the Council that the wider community and business benefits might be as important as the short term balance sheet.

to invite residents and business to suggests areas where they consider yellow lines can safely be removed to provide additional parking. Watch this space !

http://www.wimbledonguardian.co.uk/news/9332236.Free_parking_cut_will_damage_businesses/

See www.Wimbledon-Village.com for more details and follow the Village on twitter on @Wimbledonvil

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