Parking not way to get quick buck

The Federation of Small Businesses believes that councils must carefully consider the impact of the availability and cost of parking on local trade. Parking should be seen as a vital service and not a quick and easy means of raising revenue, as it is all too often the case.

By The Newsroom

Published 31st Jan 2012, 06:00 BST

The recent Mary Portas review concluded that local areas should implement free controlled parking schemes that work for their town centres and we should have a new parking league table. The FSB agrees wholeheartedly.

The FSB has also campaigned for proactive measures to combat identikit high streets. The combination of spiralling rents, the insidious proliferation of the Big Four supermarkets and the corporate multi-nationals has driven local independents into oblivion.

The resulting disappearance of any remaining local colour and diversity has rendered high streets bland and insipid, with nothing to distinguish one town from the next.

The Portas solution of local authorities using their new discretionary powers to give business rate concessions to new local businesses might prove to be the saving grace of shopping as we know it.

Gordon Millward is a regional chairman of the FSB.

Parking