Great Western Coffee Shop

Hello,
No doubt you've noticed the increase in carpark charges at Slough and Burnham.  I normally park at Burnham and the increase has meant an increase from ^3.90 to ^5 (which is what the daily rate at Slough used to be).  I find this an astronomical and unjustified increase.  I was wondering what we can do about it.  Please can you let me know your thoughts and I would be happy to take appropriate steps.
Thx

Hello jessanj and welcome to the the forum!

Sadly you are not alone in facing a massive hike in parking charges. Some of us wesscundry folk have seen increases above 100% at FGW car parks. However, You can reduce the daily cost at Burnham to ^4.50 by using the RingGo system. Still an increase, but a little less painful. I fear there is very little else you can do; you may hear from other forum members who have already complained and the responses they've got from FGW.

More details on RingGo can be found here:-

http://www.ringgo.co.uk/

Hello, jessanj, and welcome to the Coffee Shop forum!

Unfortunately, as bignosemac has summarised: there ain't much we can do!  >:(

As an example, at my local station, Nailsea & Backwell: the (council owned) parking is free - but the car park is full by 8:00am.  After that, commuters tend to park in residential side streets - or in the local nature reserve car park (also free - and unpatrolled).

It's certainly not ideal - but, to be fair, our local town council have been trying for years to expand the station car park.

Thank you all.  As I understand it, FGW subsidises carparks but has now found that it's getting out of pocket so it's culling back on funding, hence the increases by Apcoa.  Half of me is minded to call for a petition.  The other half is telling me to encourage my local station's users not to park there until the prices of parking is reduced. 

I'm not sure whether FGW are subsidising Apcoa, or charging Apcoa a fee for the parking contract - it's likely to be a complex subcontracted arrangement.  If you want to find out more, you could do worse than ask both companies, and Network Rail and the DfT too - both bodies that are owned by you and me (the taxpayer) and who's land is being used to generate this money.

An FGW spokesman has stated that the extra money is needed for maintainance (talking about Reading).  There are 1650 spaces there according to the GWRUS, and the article quote 18.40 for a 9 hour day.  The RUS talks of 60% utilisation, so you would be looking at an income of just under 7 million pounds per annum from car parking at Reading to cover maintainance, and operations.  I know nothing about car park operating costs.  Does that sound reasonable?

For Burnham, assuming everyone is paying Ring-go at 4.50, 61 spaces, 80% utilisation, you are looking at 80,000 pounds per annum of income for operation and maintainance.  Again - does that look like it's covering costs, being subsidised, or making someone a profit?

^4.50 x 5 x 50 x 250 - I make that nearer ^280000, Graham? Though of course if there is a Burnham car park season ticket available, then that would lower the total. Still, quite a lot of money for a small car park though! APCOA will obviously be making money out of the contract - how much, and how much of an influence they have on the price would be interesting to know.

4.50 x ( 365 x 0.8 ) x 61 was my calculation.  That's 4.50, 80% occupation for the 365 days of the year, and 61 spaces.   I suspect that latter figure may be wrong - it's taken from the GWRUS which is a draf t document and shows some surprising facilities I didn't know about like a bus interchange at Avoncliff.

Yep, sorry, my maths error - never was a strong point!  :-\

I totally agree - I was shocked to see the price at Tilehurst shoot up from ^3.50 to ^4.50 (instead of the ^4.00 I had been expecting.)

However, the car park is still practically full each day - a practical demonstration of the theory of price elasticity, if you know anything about economics! This means the ONLY way to get this reversed is for everyone to stop parking there. If we are prepared to pay it, they will continue to charge it.

I am now parking on the only street nearby that still allows it (but for how long???) and walking the remainder of the way, since I for one am not prepared to pay this amount.

Hi

I'm rang up yesterday to renew my annual car park season ticket at Pewsey, which has gone up from ^480 to ^696! I think  this is the worst sort of profiteering, especially when most people's income is taking a hit. I'm also wondering what to do about it, apart from a boycott.

By the sound of it, FGW does have control over the charges rather than APCOA, so who would be the appropriate person to complain to? It really does stink.

I would suggest the boycott if you can do it without greatly affecting your commute. Complaining to FGW will bring little in the way of comfort. All they will do is trot out the line that car-park charges were artificially low before the increase and that the price-hike was needed to cover maintenence and improvement costs. Don't be fooled by this. With falling revenues due to the recession FGW are merely attempting to protect the bottom line, if they lose a few customers they can still keep revenue levels acceptable by increasing the charges the remaining customers pay. This protects shareholder dividends and ensures First Group remains an attractive investment in the City. It is, however a dangerous tactic to increase prices, or reduce service provision, during an economic downturn. NXEC went to the wall because it squeezed the pips too hard.

Increasing prices in a recession is a common tactic where there is a monopoly operator. You'll notice that where there is real competition, say on the High Street, that prices are coming down.

You probably have no option but to drive Pewsey for your commute. One (very) small ray of light is that if you have a season train ticket up for renewal after January it will drop in cost by 0.4%

Cheers for that - it's not a big deal to park on the street at Pewsey. There's been a pretty big drop in people in that car park since the rises. I imagine they may lose lose revenue with people simply not using the train. I appreciate your economic analysis but think that if enough (even a few) people say "now that you've raised your car park charges I'm no longer parking at the station/travelling on the train",

On the annual ticket front, mine is up for renewal now with an increase of about 3%. Are you saying if I renew next year it will be much cheaper? May well be worth me buying individual tickets until then, what with Christmas.

Best