Cameron drops parking charges idea

How to throw an election away (v3.0)

Luckily the plan that we heard of yesterday to bring an end to free car parking at supermarkets, DIY stores and garden centres etc. as exploded by Littlejohn in The Daily Mail was only contained in the John Gummer/Zak Goldsmith proposals, and as Conservative Home reports CMD (Call Me Dave) has moved fast to kill off any suggestions that the ideas will be built into future policy. However, the newspaper articles that gave the ideas wider publicity than they deserved have served to stir up Conservative opinion that the party’s leadership can so easily be made to look like oafs!

Comments left on Mr. Cameron’s interactive website WebCameron have been less than generous, I’m sure the messages must be beginning to get through, the party’s new presentational gurus must be having nightmares as Cameron attempts to regain some sort of momentum after Brown’s successful summer.

I noted during the summer that some of the areas that I visited already operate something approaching the policies suggested by young Goldsmith, in Buxton, for instance, the three supermarket car parks at Waitrose, Aldi, and Morrisons had all been heavily influenced by the High Peaks District Council. You were allowed one hour of free parking, the stores were “encouraged” to use the services of an external parking monitor, and council owned pay and display machines were installed for the longer visitor. Prices were high enough to discourage you from staying longer than an hour, indeed at £1.40 per hour it was no surprise that tourists were parking on side streets more than a mile from the town centre and making a tortuous walk downhill to the shops. A similar situation was witnessed in Skipton, West Yorks, where all day parking in all car parks was over £8 per day!

Any such scheme that could force you to pay these sort of rates at places such as B&Q in Station Road, South Shields could well result in you deciding NOT to buy that new kitchen in South Shields (who can buy a kitchen in under an hour?)

I think Dave must now realise that this idea is without doubt a vote loser!