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What to do about parking?
Mar 4, 2008
A COUPLE of weeks ago, our online poll asked whether or not motorists should be charged for using Galgate car park.
Perhaps, not surprisingly, 75 per cent of those who took part in our completely unscientific poll voted in favour of free parking.
Of course, the situation regarding car parking in Barney is an old chestnut that rears its head on a regular basis in either the news or letters columns of the Mercury.
As far as Galgate is concerned, it strikes me as being somewhat unfair to charge people doing their weekly shop in the nearby supermarket to park, when down the road in Bishop Auckland, you can stay for as long as you like outside its branch of the same store.
But to make all parking in Barney quite literally a free-for-all would probably not be the answer.
After all, if you could park up at any time, anywhere, for any length of time in the town centre, one suspects the place would quickly fill up with the cars of those who travel into Barney to work, leaving little room to cater for the many visitors.
Perhaps one answer is for those of us who drive into town every day to use public transport.
It's fine in principle - and I am one of, I suspect, many who could take advantage of the bus. After all, in my case, the No 75 pulls up just a few yards from my front door and drops me off outside the Mercury office. The buses are, by and large, clean. I have yet to get on a bus that is full and the drivers strike me as friendly bunch.
So what stops me? It's simple economics.
A single from home to work is £2.80, a return £4.90 and a weekly ticket £20.
The weekly ticket is the most economic option, but then I simply do the maths?
It's a daily round trip of 14 miles - 70 miles for a five-day week. My car does about 40 miles to the gallon, so even in these days of the £1.04 litre of petrol, it works out that I spend less than half on getting to work in the car than I would by bus.
So, until the pendulum swings the other way, it's the car for me, which means the daily hunt for a space which isn't going to cost me a minimum of the £4 charged at the Hole in the Wall, and that in turn means parking outside someone's house.
Perhaps an answer will be found once the new super-council is in power and both the car parks and highways come under the control of the same department.
Berwick vote is not so surprising
I HEARD on the news at the weekend that the good folk of Berwick-upon-Tweed had voted 60-40 in favour of moving the town into Scotland so they could come under the jurisdiction of the parliament at Holyrood.
As I mentioned last week, I spent four years north of the border, and having known little about the Scottish Executive when I moved there, I have to say that on balance, I was won over.
The biggest advantage - and this was echoed by many - was that of access. Representatives of many organisations I came across during my stint in Orkney were amazed at how easy it was to take their case straight to the minister (including the First Minister) involved.
Add to that the likes of no tuition fees for university students and free personal and nursing care for the elderly and it's a persuasive argument.
Proportional representation works well and parliament matters because no overall majority means legislation is properly debated and compromises must be reached. Of course it has its drawbacks, such as its funding and the thorny issue of Scots MPs voting on English issues when their counterparts south have no say over similar matters north of the border because they are devolved to the MSPs in Holyrood.
But no, on the whole I am not surprised Berwick has decided to move north.
STUART LAUNDY
First published in the Mercury, February 20, 2008