Matt's/Web Monkey Dimensions Parking charges interview on 6Towns.co.uk + Audio

I was invited to join NIgel Howle on his first show today on 6towns.co.uk for a chat about parking charges over at Dimensions swimming pool. [Listen Below]

All accounts of the story reported on the council website and local press were saying that the car park was over used with what was classed as illegal parking, as in the owners of the cars not using the leisure center. Really? I've seen days when the main car park was busy on Sunday mornings, but never full. Then it came to light that it was Vale fans parking on match days that was causing the parking problems.

So for this reason alone the council decided to levy a parking charge for every day of the week, rather than a few hours on Saturday. Just an excuse to make money. So instead of looking at other solutions to rid the car park of this problem, the council would rather penalize users of Dimensions than tackle the cause of the problem.

If you were a member of the gym, you would have your parking charges reimbursed. But my issue is swimming lessons aren't cheap, lessons are about £50 for a 13 week term, 4 terms a year. So we are spending about £400 a year on lessons.

But when you then put separate parking charges on top of that, 50 x £1 X 2 you're looking at another £100.

When queried about this the staff hadn't had any info at Dimensions (the arrogance of the council to announce something and not then give advice to front line staff). They couldn't tell me if swimming lessons were exempt from charges.

Are there alternatives? Hell yeah. Clough Hall have swimming lessons which we'll be looking into, no parking charges. I know the place well as it's were I learnt to swim. It's not a million miles away, in fact there isn't that much difference between the distance of Dimensions and Clough Hall from where I live. Alsager and Bidulph aren't that far away either, we used to take our eldest boy to Alsager BATHS for the first 4 years of his life.

I think the other thing the council haven't taken into account is how popular the swimming lessons are at Dimensions as the other parents you speak to come from all over the area and further (as far as nantwhich, holmes chapel, congleton), so when I was disguising this with some of those parents they really objected, and their first reaction was to look closer to home, even if the reputation wasn't as good.

On todays show, straight after me was Cllr Hazel Lyth. I didn't know who she was, so was I was a little taken aback when Nigel introduced her. Cllr Lyth said that the council weren't introducing the measures to make money, but to improve the service (by making money?).

No thought had been made into swimming lessons, or more importantly alternative ways of stopping the Vale parking.

It's a way of making more money out of people, who have even less money because of job losses, pay cuts, pay freezes and overall price increases.

On a side note, the very day that the council made the announcements about closing local pools, and price increases and parking charges is also the same week that the government made the point that services that provide health benefits like swimming and leisure should be protected.

My thanks go to 6Towns.co.uk Radio and Nigel Howle, who did a fantastic job with his interviews on his first day on the station.

Nigel's show is every Tuesday and Thursday from 1-3pm