Seil Chat

Oban Times Article this week re Parking in Oban

So Argyll and Bute are claiming that they have lost £250 k revenue in parking charges since they got rid of Traffic Wardens / Police involvement / parking wardens in Oban !!

This is an NO BRAINER to me........!!!

Incredible !! - The answer is simple and I am not an accountant !

By the way I still intend to pay !

Happy Christmas

Snoman

Just in case circumstances change as a result of OT article perhaps we should give some serious thought about this - as I said I will continue to pay !

Free for all ! - I doubt it

Snoman

Speaking here as one who takes a car into Oban on the occasions that I don't feel like walking - which is 100% of the time.
If the occasion is to buy food or to visit other retail outlets within spitting distance of the free car parks, one can park there with impunity - mindful of the fact that there is a time limit, and this is still being enforced.
But for visits to establishments further afield beyond comfortable walking distance ( and comfortable is a relative term depending on age, mobility, time available, and weather) I have found that the present regime is a great improvement on the old warden business.
Most visits to double line environments have been of very short duration (5-10 minutes) and previously one had to make sure there was not a warden in the offing before exiting the vehicle, and if the transaction was delayed somewhat, by continuous visits to a doorway to check on a warden free environment.
So this worry has been absent for some considerable time, and in all that time, to my knowledge there has never been any problem with congestion, double parking, or complete gridlock.
Personally, I have not had to pay for on street, or off street parking in the past, so if A&B council have been losing money, someone else must have been coughing up to fill the shortfall, and I suspect that it is the off street Pay & Display venues which are losing revenue.
As this thread is about parking charges (or currently the lack of them), the A&B Council should be concentrating resources in making car parking access freely available to all and sundry, and not using the facility to raise a bit of extra cash. This would benefit the traders, the tourists, and the locals, engender goodwill, and given the tourist attraction of Oban, probably pay dividends in the long run