Motorist Helen Miles, who drives a Fiat Seicento, is in favour of the scheme and feels it will encourage other motorists to buy smaller cars. (Picture by Tom Tardif, 0863293)
MOTORISTS with larger cars have hit out at Environment’s decision to increase the number of small-car parking spaces in St Peter Port.
From next weekend the department plans to start work on extending the designated parking scheme to North Beach and the Albert Pier following a successful pilot project on the Crown Pier.
In North Beach car park, 27 standard 10-hour spaces will go to create 36 small-car spaces and 13 two-hour spaces at the end of the Albert Pier will become 16 smaller ones. The idea was launched to promote the use of small cars, which the department says are better for the environment – and the island’s narrow roads.
But it is bad news for commuters with cars longer than the qualifying 3.6 metres.
This week, some Town workers spoke of their concerns that they would now find it even harder to get the spaces they need. However, others were in favour of the move for environmental and economic reasons.
IT engineer Lee Hubert, 28, did not think it was a good move because he uses North Beach car park every day for work.
‘For economic reasons I can see why it would be a good idea, but for people who need to park and don’t have small cars it is going to be more difficult,’ he said. ‘I won’t be using them because I just bought a new car and it is too big for the spaces.’
The small-car parking scheme was launched in September 2005, creating 43 spaces for small cars on the Careening Hard arm of the Crown Pier.
Environment’s Road Transport Strategy is now being continued with these further small-car spaces in St Peter Port.
Work on North Beach is due to start on 8 November.
The new parking areas will be reviewed in a year’s time.
Vehicles must be able to be parked entirely within the marked bays.
Article posted on 28th October, 2009 - 2.29pm
42 Article Comments
How about adding a parent/child parking scheme to St Peter Port? They have a similar scheme at Checkers and Safeway that seems to work well.
Unlike many people, parents with very young children have little choice but to use the car if they’re visiting town and a row of dedicated spaces on the North Beach would be very helpful.
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What a surprise, people with big cars dislike the idea but people with smaller cars support it. I would never have guessed that reaction.
The fact is that modern cars are getting bigger each model revision and our roads if anything are getting smaller as we put in more footpaths.
Case in point a VW Golf
Mk1 3.7M long, 1.6M wide
Mk6 4.2M Long, 1.8M wide
And that probably doesn’t include the far larger “wing” mirrors on modern cars (though many people prefer to drive with them folded in and ignore all the other road users).
I’m now waiting for the next person with a new “mini” complaining about getting a ticket for parking in a small car space.
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There isnt enough 10 hour parking as it is – is this gonna solve it?! No!!
They talk about emmisions – all this is going to do is to cause more cars to drive around & around…. & around looking for a space, thus canceling out the one or two people that it will stop driving into work!
Another harebrained idea thought up by buffoons on a power trip!!
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W H Bonney
You miss the point, they _are_ increasing the total number of 10 hour spaces. It just happens to look like a reduction if you decide to drive a bigger car.
I support the idea even though my car is slightly over the size to be able to use these new spaces. If I find it a big issue getting a space in future then the next car I get will be smaller (and cheaper).
Yes, people will probably drive around more looking for a space, but as road tax is on fuel that is just extra revenue to fund more changes to the car parks ;)
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I have to disagree slightly WH Bonney but then I may be missing the point altogether. I drive a big car and as far as I’m concerned this is good news.
If you think about it the small cars park in the normal spaces anyway and so surely this means actually more spaces for both large and small cars?
What I’m trying to say is that if there are 100 cars trying to park in 80 spaces and creating these small spaces creates 20 extra small car spaces. I would guess at least a quarter of the cars trying to park are small cars then the problem for both large and small cars is being solved? *breath*
Does that make any sense? At least I know what I’m talking about :-)
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With the town dying around the States knees, this is just the incentive to get more people to shop that they did not need. I wonder if the States consulted with the town traders before thinking up this idea.
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As they are giving more spaces for small cars then its time that the small cars were banned from occupying the larger spaces. On the crown pier you will regularly find small cars occupying the larger spaces despite there being plenty of spaces available in the small car parking area. Its about time some spaces were made available exclusively for tradesmens vans who have no choice but to park in town due to the amount of equipment they require to do their jobs.
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I always rode a motorbike into town. Then one day a warden booked me for parking within a car parking space on the crown pier.
Now the bike is kept purely for pleasure. And as for trips into St. P.P. The 4×4 every time.
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Brilliant idea!
Well done the States!
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I would have thought it’s the width of cars that is the problem on our roads, not the length.
Either way, I support the idea, even though my car is too big to fit. As Ben says, when you create small car spaces they take up less room. So overall there are more spaces created.
And it will help encourage people looking to buy a new car to get a smaller one. The greater the proportion of small cars on our roads, the better it will be for everyone, whether you drive a small or a large vehicle (just imagine the chaos if we all chose to drive Chelsea tractors…)
I think I’ll be off now to search online for a car that is less than 3.6m long, and as tall and narrow as possible… Some kind of miniature double decker bus perhaps?
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I drive a 600cc Honda Acty van and I am very happy to hear more small spaces are being created!
Good work!
Mal B Smith – what a load of rubbish!
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I agree the idea is good, but not the idea of forcing everyone to buy smaller cars. Take for example people who have roof racks to transfer surf boards or kayaks on. Can’t have them over hanging the length of your car. So if we all drive around in roller stakes how would people transport them about? Or would that just please the swimmers as they can have Vazon back again?
Like the idea, but doesn’t solve the bigger issue of too many cars on the road, too many people driving to town either!
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I support the smaller spaces, even though I can’t use them.
If there are people who will buy a smaller car because of these spaces then that’s fine. I know of a couple of peaple who have done so. They didn’t sell their other cars though, they just bought a third car to take to town.
The cars that can fit in those smaller spaces are fine for a short drive from the old folks’ home to Town, but not much use for a family holiday, or pulling a trailer, or carrying a couple of kids and a friend, or normal family life in general.
There will be those that have found that their larger car is getting too much for them to handle and will sell it in favour of a smaller car. The normal space they used to use will of course be filled by another normal car.
Is there a way to measure the success of the spaces?
E
(the other one)
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Great idea, there are too many cars on our roads and too many ridiculously large ones, is this a status symbol thing? I don’t understand the need for such behemoths and I certainly never give way to anyone in a car larger than my own!
Why leave your 4×4 in a 10 hour space all day when you can use the bus?
I would also like to see a limit on the number of cars you own related to the size of your household.
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The problem with parking in town isn’t smaller cars – its Parent & Child spaces…
There is nowhere to park if you have to get a youngster out of a car seat & or a buggy out of the boot… People are very incondiserate & park so close to your car that you sometimes have to reverse/drive out of the space to get a toddler in to his/her chair…
We claim to be sorting the parking problem, but not one parent & child space in town shows that we are actually no where near sorting it!!
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Can anyone tell me if my new style mini would fit into one of the new spaces?
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Kevin, It doesn’t fit at the crown pier so presumably it wouldnt either in the new spaces.
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If the idea is to get more people driving smaller calls ultimately all the parking will be made into small spaces which will mean more cars which will negate the benefits of having smaller cars!!.
Also if you look at the large parking spaces in town the worst parking (over the lines and alignment etc) is by the drivers of the smaller cars.
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I used to think having more small car spaces was a good idea … until I measured our ’small’ car. 3.75 Metres! Six inches too big so we will now be punished by trying to find one of the dwindling number of ‘big’ spaces. Now this is not a large car by anybody else’s standards, a very popular model on Guernsey too. Its only two years old so we won’t be replacing it for quite a while, either. Under 3.6 metres is a REALLY small car, probably not big enough to do anything with but commute into town. Therefore I conclude that people will not buy smaller cars, just extra cars. Who decided 3.6 metres was the magic size, the car dealers?
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I just found a ‘Top Ten Best Small Cars’ Guide. Guess what, 9 out of 10 will not fit into the 3.6 metre spaces. The only one which fits (with 2″ to spare) is the Fiat 500. These are the rest of the top 10 which are ‘verboten’: Renault Clio, Peugeot 207, Ford Fiesta, Volkswagen Polo, Nissan Micra, Toyota Yaris, Vauxhall Corsa, BMW Mini. So if we all have to go out and buy smaller cars than these its pretty obvious we will also have to have bigger cars to actually transport people, shopping, dogs etc.
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I forgot to mention the Daihatsu Sirion and Perodua Myvi – also waaay too big according to the geniuses who set the bar at 3.6 metres.
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@Gache Don’t get taken in by the advertising, most of the cars you list are not actually small and have all but moved up a category in size over the years. E.g. The new fiesta is probably bigger than the old mk1 escort (I don’t have time to check now, but I’m pretty sure the new polo is also bigger than the old mk1 golf).
Cars are getting bigger, the roads and car parks are not. Simple.
And if anyone driving a mini really thinks it is small because of the name then you too have been taken in by marketing – congratulations.
Looking at that list, the 207 is described by Peugeot as a family hatchback, the 107 is the supermini and looks to be under 3.6m
Instead of a Clio look at the Twingo which is right on 3.6m.
The Volkswagen Fox is too big, but as they are one of the worst offenders for making their new cars bigger that isn’t a shock.
Vauxhall have the Agila which I couldn’t find the size on their website.
Do you see a pattern here? Town cars / superminis will probably be fine but your “Small cars” are not that small, just smaller than their bigger cars. Simple really ;)
You are not being forced to buy a new car etc, the number of spaces involved isn’t a huge deal and there will still be normal sized spaces.
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Student Jim, I’m not saying its impossible to buy cars smaller than 3.6 metres long – just impractical. If the intention is that everybody who wants to park in town buys an additional tiny car for the purpose, fair enough.
But wouldn’t it be better to encourage everybody on the island to settle for smaller multi-purpose cars? If so they could have set the threshold at a more sensible level – slightly bigger. For instance, our car at 3.75m long is just big enough to seat 4 adults comfortably plus a bit of shopping or a dog in the back. Or put the back seats down and you can seat 2 plus a lot of luggage or a bike etc. We consider it the ideal car to have in Guernsey and its still adequate (just) to take on holiday to France or the UK. We won’t be buying a little noddy car just to make parking in town easier. We would go by bus but the service is so infrequent out of high season that its hardly worth having.
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I just love it when you lot do the States work for them. If the States kept to their promise, & built a multi-storey carpark on the North beach as this argument arose a few years ago, then all your arguments would be null and void. If their was plenty of parking for everybody, who would care what type of vehicle you drove. Each to their own and freedom of choice I say. If you lot keep on shouting, then some deputy is going to stand up in the States & start demanding restrictions on vehicles coming into the island. It has been tried once before and failed. But,,, you never know, keep on shouting and another piece of our freedom would be lost. And, by the way, St Peter, at least I don’t have an under-performing little one.
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Mal B Smith – are you trying to keep up with Jersey in the “lets build ugly monstrosities and ruin the essence of our town” competition?
I cannot think of anything worse than a multistorey car park on the harbour front – at least, not until I look at St Helier.
We do not have too many cars, but we do have too many in the short period of going to work. More parking would only make that worse. We need to focus on making it viable for more people to get to work without their car.
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TL is right, our bus service is not good enough though. Our bus journey into town is beautiful, but its not so lovely to have to wait an hour in a force 8 gale if we miss one or find the last bus has gone at 6pm and have to pay £15 for a taxi home.
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At last! Someone agrees that our ‘bus service’ is not good enough it’s not reliable for a start.
I have no choice but to rely on our dreadful bus service as I am one of the few people who cannot, and do not wish to, drive. Waiting in poor weather is no fun at all, you often have to take pot luck with the buses as you can’t always be sure one will turn up. Repeated complaints to Island Coachways fall on deaf ears and are fobbed off with rubbish excuses.
On the journey into work 9 times out if 10 I have to stand as pupils from Ladies and Elizabeth colleges fill the bus, they think they are entitled to a seat for them and a seat for thier school bag and will not move bags from seats for fellow passengers to sit down. Why are these kids not on school buses? On the return journey home the timings of the buses are ridiculous. You either have to sprint to try and catch a bus within 30 seconds of finishing work or else face another lengthy wait for the next one.
At least Jersey has a better idea of running a bus service. As Gache says – buses end not long after 6pm to most areas and taxi fares are beyond the reach of most of us financially.
Come on Hannah Beacom, start using the buses to get to and from work and see just how impractical they are.
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I think small spaces are a great idea. It will ultimatley create more spaces and smaller cars are generally better for the enviroment.
Oh and BTW Mal B Smith after having a dig at St. Peter is your big car making up for your other under performing little one!
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Dear Mal B,
If your idea of an “underperforming little one” is a vehicle which can comfortably carry 5 adults whilst having a boot capacity which will rival (and beat) any car, does almost 50 mpg, can make almost any corner on this island without the need for tacking, will happily pull a full load at the 35mph speed limit and never even has to think about mounting the pavement when it sees a bus coming towards it. Not to mention the fact that when it goes to town, plenty of 10 hour parking spaces await… then I’m afraid I have to disagree with you. Sorry.
My description of an “underperforming little one” would be the kind of person who stands up on the bus during the journey home from work because they are afraid to ask a 14 year old girl to move her school bag. Wouldn’t you agree?
St Peter
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Sam Maindonald is the key.
She knows people that can sort it.
Between her and the Guernsey Boys, the whole of north beach could be cleared daily until the drivers get the message not to leave their cars there.
When understood they could buy their cars back for a ton or something and the miwwions raised could go on some giant chips for my intellectual property.
Or a bus.
like CheesedOff but with wings, i can’t drive and do a bit of all weather bus chasing. The worst are the ones that leave your stop early. you see go trundling round the corner (and then reversing and retaking the corner without scraping the wall) and you ‘run’ after it like the original grange hill credits.
calling the bus man fills your ears up with shrugs
I think if the car park spaces were made as big as a Hotwheels car, then you could still be out in public and be cool. and the roads could have loop the loops.
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So St Peter has obviously never travelled by bus and had to deal with rude teenagers, so much for college education being the best. It can be (and has been) an intimidating experience.
Anyway, if these school pupils received a decent education from their parents as well as school then they would have the manners to not be so greedy in the first place. Passengers should not have to ask for a seat to be vacated.
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CheesedOff,
I have to apologise about the comment that appeared to be aimed at you. When flicking through the comments during my response to Mal B Smith I thought she had written the part about travelling by bus, hence reffering to it in the “smart ar**” format!
It is only now when I read the comments back I have realised my mistake, sorry.
With this in mind, I would have usually commented to you something along the lines of…
“Have you considered asking the young children to move their bags?”
… instead of simply taking the mick!
I agree with your comments about the bus system in Guernsey, especially the timing part.
St Peter
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The reason for introducing small car spaces is a) to encourage people to own a small car (which is better for the environment and other road users); and b) to make better use of limited space.
I bet if the States re-drew all the car park spacing lines to make them big enough to park a Range Rover (thereby reducing the number of spaces by about 30%) most of us would be pretty cross.
The idea of building a multi-storey car park is ridiculous on many counts. It would be ugly. It would be expensive. It would encourage even more people to drive in rather than use the bus or walk, and thereby increase congestion. Isn’t traffic into and out of town in the rush hour bad enough already?
Thank heavens someone in the States is thinking about traffic congestion, pollution, and our environment more generally. They have taken a modest step to do something about it, by creating a few small car spaces. I’m grateful.
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St Peter
Thanks for clearing up the misunderstanding. I too apologise for my shirty response.
Anyway the fact still remains that our bus ’service’ is in a shocking state.
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The reason Elizabeth and Ladies’ College children are not on school buses is because there are no buses for these schools.
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Why are there no school buses for these children? Why are they not taught manners?
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the colleges should organize their own buses
and this might free up the traffic in town
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It certainly would Kevin!
Especially in the Rohais/Grange areas
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Perhaps the reason the Colleges don’t have school buses is because they are in Town and all buses go there.
Surely that kids are taking the bus to school is better than each one being driven by their parents?
Incidentaly my son goes to Elizabeth College by bus and he comments that it is barely half full most days.
Perhaps his mere presence as an “ill mannered” 12 years old intimidates would be commuters?
If that is so I will personally beat some manners into him and drive him to school myself once I have purchased a car shorter than 3.60 metres.
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Bad Dad if the bus your son travels on is barely half full then he’s lucky to have the luxury of extra space.
He certainly doesn’t sound as if he’s the sort of thoughtless pupil who takes up two seats which are clearly marked with a sign to keep free for elderly and disabled passengers.
Your over the top suggestion will not be necessary.
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Surely the answer is bigger buses! Double deckers, or even bendy buses. Or even double-decker bendy buses! We could have unruly kids at the back, and everyone else at the front!
This stunning idea could solve all of the traffic problems of the island in one go!
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Perhaps as the stereotyping continues in these comments I could suggest that all boys and girls college students should instead use daddies’ private helicopters to get to school!?
Come on ay, those guys are just as entitled to use the bus as Mrs Cheesed off and her heavy bags of whinging. If you don’t like the way its run do something about it!
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