9/5/2008

Woking

Letters from May 8 2008

‘Unfair’ fees mean we’ll shop elsewhere

EDITOR — Please find below a copy of letter sent to Woking Borough Council.

It reads: “I would like to request a refund for charges not connected to actual parking which I have paid since the change in the car park serving The Peacocks and Woking centre.

“Since the changeover I have used the car park on three occasions. I would normally use it much more but I was away for a week.

“On the first occasion I took my ticket and found a parking place within a few minutes. On the way out, however, I had to queue for at least five minutes to pay for my parking.

“Although I had been careful to check the time and knew that I had not been more than two hours, I had to pay £2.70.

“The second time I only visited one shop as I did not wish to pay for more time than really necessary so I was able to get out of the car park, having paid only £1 for about 30 minutes.

“The third time I visited I obtained my ticket and then drove up and down the car park looking for a place. It certainly took more than 10 minutes searching for a place, which is not surprising considering the second floor parking is closed and the amount of parking on the first floor considerably reduced.

“ I then parked, carefully checked the time on my ticket and rushed to the places I had to visit.

“When I got back to pay there was a long queue at the machine so I waited at least five minutes. To my surprise, I had to pay £3, even though I had only been one hour and 50 minutes. This means that on two occasions I was overcharged a full hour, the overcharge amounting to £1.90.

“The extra time involved in finding a place and queuing for payment should be built into the timing.

“We should be able to park our cars and then pick up a ticket after we have parked. This should not be beyond the powers of those who designed the system.

“Why is it that for years on the continent this system of car parking had been charging the exact amount of time, ie two hours 20 minutes or 45 minutes, or whatever the exact time was, while in Woking we are being overcharged?

“I do realise it could mean more money for the council but I am a Woking resident and pay a large amount already in council tax.

“I would appreciate a refund for the £1.90 I was overcharged as soon as possible. I was not able to prove how long I was there or how much I paid as you do not provide any form of receipt.

“I have heard many comments on the cost of the new system to those parking cars and all of them have stated that they will not come to the centre as frequently as in the past.

“Many are saying they will walk which means that shopping will have to be limited to small, light items.

“Shops selling food will certainly lose many of their customers as, on a matter of principle, they will choose to go to shops outside the centre which have free parking.

“This new system has done no favours to Woking, nor to those who would like to use the town more frequently but now find the charges prohibitive and unfair.”
Rita Walsh
Bylands
Woking

Roadwork ‘lottery’ is a backlash

EDITOR — I am wrting in response to your front page article concerning the priorities of road maintenance by Surrey County Council (News and Mail, April 10).

The whole sorry state of roads and footpaths throughout the UK was highlighted in a recent article in the national press, with Surrey County Council in particular slated for spending most of its government road improvement grant on its massive programme of speed camera installations, while allowing its road network to fall into a shocking state of disrepair.

So is it any wonder the county’s allocation of much-needed roadwork funding has become a farcical lottery.
“Woking is being screwed,” claimed Horsell’s county councillor John Doran.

Not so much Mr Doran. It’s you, along with your fellow local and county cronies, who are screwing the electorate and the motorists in Surrey, along with the disabled and elderly and now our town centre workforce, through incompetence, consistent mismanagement and needless squandering of vast sums of public money over several years.

This has resulted in the huge backlashes and cuts in services now seen everywhere in the community.
J Williams
Fairfax Road
Old Woking

EDITOR — If Cllr John Doran is really so concerned about the level of spending on Surrey roads (News and Mail, April 10), why did he vote against the Conservatives borrowing £25 million to make good the government’s inadequate and declining funding for highway work?
Michael Gammon
Kettlewell Hill
Woking

Broken pledges to keep POs open

EDITOR — It is interesting to conjecture on the long-term impression made on the people of this country by the zeal with which the government has initiated the current savage programme of post office closures in implementation of EU Directive 97/67/EC.

One cannot fail also to be curious regarding the effect on the public’s view of the politicians who have legislated for the closure policy and then subsequently demonstrated against it in their own constituency, together with many EU devotees in the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrat Party, who, of course, have supported the policy of closure by association.

When the closure programme is completed they can all look back with dubious satisfaction to the misery and isolation they have inflicted on towns and villages throughout the land (with particular effect on the elderly with low incomes) by having the heart torn out of their communities.

This outrageous assault on the quality of life on the most vulnerable in society, so soon after their parties’ broken manifesto pledges on the EU constitution, must afford them a glowing senses of pride in their political affiliations.
DP Davey
Westfield

Speeds in narrow lane must be enforced

EDITOR — What will it take to make our residential roads safe?

Recently a young man was knocked off his cycle on one of the several bends along Hook Hill Lane.

The bends make the extremely narrow lane very dangerous to the daring speeders as they venture on unsuspecting pedestrians and oncoming vehicles. They make it impossible to judge what is looming but also impossible to enforce regulations with speed cameras and the like.

The narrow width makes it all but impossible for anything more than ordinary cars to pass another and, even then, at low velocity to ensure care.  And since the temporary closure of the Mayford Green bridge for repairs, the road has become even more of a rat run. The bridge bollards have been damaged so often that they are now removable for easy repair.

All the while I have lived here others have been too scared to approach the council in case there is a pejorative response and the whole road is closed again.

This would unreasonably inconvenience locals, rather than other traffic calming methods being introduced and additional restrictions on the bridge such as a fixed height limit too, while maintaining full and reasonable access to residential properties.
Graham Warner
Address supplied

First printed in: Woking News and Mail

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