New Car Park Charges - Greater Anglia Railways

[K Lo 246]

A good few people, including me, often use the free parking at the smaller local stations to get to the Norwich match for a relatively hassle-free way to get in and out of the city.

Greater Anglia Railways have are now charging £3 a day to park at places such as Acle, Brundall, Haddiscoe, Hoveton & Wroxham, Newmarket, North Walsham, Reedham, which were previously free.

Their pathetic excuse was to "bring these car parks in line with others on our network".  Is that even an excuse ? Couldn't they operate with some car parks being free ?

 

https://www.edp24.co.uk/business/greater-anglia-commuters-face-new-parking-charges-1-6139315

 

[king canary 8,763]

To be honest I'm surprised any train stations have free car parks at this point.

[Jobsworth Canary 168]

This is a first world problem 

[canarydan23 4,770]

It's ridiculous charging to park somewhere in an area where you can park for free only a handful of yards from said car park. 

[CANARYKING 708]

Now all along the Lowestoft to Ipswich line too

[splendidrush 720]

7 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

It's ridiculous charging to park somewhere in an area where you can park for free only a handful of yards from said car park. 

If that's the case, why would anybody pay?

[Van wink 2,994]

Last time I parked my car at the multi story to go in to London the ticket was £12 instead of £8☹️ Wtf is going on?

[Rivvo 265]

I got caught out by that, they only have a certain amount of spaces for rail users, if the rail spaces are already taken you have to pay the leisure rate, cost me £40 for two days parking.

[splendidrush 720]

4 minutes ago, Van wink said:

Last time I parked my car at the multi story to go in to London the ticket was £12 instead of £8☹️ Wtf is going on?

How much was the train ticket?

[Flying Dutchman 766]

1 hour ago, king canary said:

To be honest I'm surprised any train stations have free car parks at this point.

Agreed.

To be honest, there are a lot of car park charges these days which are difficult to justify.

But I am afraid that £3 to park all day at a train station car park is just NOT an injustice. 

As Jobsworth said, this is very much a 1st world problem.

If you can park for free just yards away, do so. If there are no spaces, either park further away or pay the, frankly, minimal charge. Where I live, you can park about 30 seconds walkaway from a multi-storey for free, but that doesn't mean the multi-storey charging you is a travesty...

[Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man 4,629]

34 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

It's ridiculous charging to park somewhere in an area where you can park for free only a handful of yards from said car park. 

 

3 minutes ago, Flying Dutchman said:

If you can park for free just yards away, do so. If there are no spaces, either park further away or pay the, frankly, minimal charge. 

This is me in a nutshell. I really hate paying for car parking anywhere.

As an aside, don't match tickets in Germany give you free public transport for the city two hours before and two hours after the match? A pretty good deal considering tickets are so cheap anyway.

[CanaryNath 30]

£3 for an entire day????? That’s a great deal. 

 

[Van wink 2,994]

24 minutes ago, splendidrush said:

How much was the train ticket?

Around £125

[Van wink 2,994]

26 minutes ago, Rivvo said:

I got caught out by that, they only have a certain amount of spaces for rail users, if the rail spaces are already taken you have to pay the leisure rate, cost me £40 for two days parking.

Ah ok so that’s probably it then, think I got a later train👍

[lake district canary 4,836]

It is a bit ridiculous the way big companies haver to have everyone "in line" with their "national policies" and don't allow for local situations.  It's just laziness imo, they can't be bothered to think about individual cases.

[cornish sam 1,040]

12 minutes ago, lake district canary said:

It is a bit ridiculous the way big companies haver to have everyone "in line" with their "national policies" and don't allow for local situations.  It's just laziness imo, they can't be bothered to think about individual cases.

Is it though? Would you be fine if the smaller stations weren't being maintained in line with national policies? The car parks still need upkeep and maintenance, which isn't free. Also, if there is free parking nearby and only limited spaces then this will help the train passengers who need to park close actually get a space...

 

Edit: just to add, living in Cumbria for a while you must have seen how much public transport has been cut back and the effect that has on small communities. If a station is costing too much to run and maintain then there is always the danger that it will get shut, even the tiny boost of £100 per day from parking would help...

Edited July 4, 2019 by cornish sam

[Nuff Said 5,973]

Think yourself lucky. It costs £14.50 a day to park at Derby Station.

[Jobsworth Canary 168]

The problem with the railway car parks is that it is a first come first serve basis.

if they introduced a priority £50 member ship scheme all would be well 😉

[ricardo 8,041]

Get a 🚴‍♂️

[ROBFLECK 134]

9 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Get a 🚴‍♂️

Yes, I started using the bike about a year ago , as I was fed up with using the car and having the parking probs...taking the train is all good and well ... but this hubbub in the morning is bad enough without having to use the car...

[canarydan23 4,770]

1 hour ago, splendidrush said:

If that's the case, why would anybody pay?

Ah. You're still suffering under the illusion that the majority of Britons are rational.

[canarydan23 4,770]

23 minutes ago, cornish sam said:

Is it though? Would you be fine if the smaller stations weren't being maintained in line with national policies? The car parks still need upkeep and maintenance, which isn't free. Also, if there is free parking nearby and only limited spaces then this will help the train passengers who need to park close actually get a space...

 

Edit: just to add, living in Cumbria for a while you must have seen how much public transport has been cut back and the effect that has on small communities. If a station is costing too much to run and maintain then there is always the danger that it will get shut, even the tiny boost of £100 per day from parking would help...

Upkeep and maintenance? I don't think you've traversed the Bittern or Wherry lines a great deal. The amount spent on upkeep and maintenance of the car parks is about the square root of zero. And if you think the £3 a day will go on "upkeep and maintenance", then I have a bridge to sell you.

I completely agree that communities rely on their service, so much so that I think opening up an enterprise people are reliant on, and in many cases have little to no choice but to use, to nefarious entities or foreign governments that use said reliance to chuck 8-figure dividends out year on year is a questionable policy for a government to make and sustain.

I wouldn't want to live within 100 yards of these stations anymore. Commuters with a little bit of sense will simply start leaving their cars on adjacent residential streets where they don't have to throw £3 into the Dutch government dividend fund.

I would be genuinely curious as to what Abellio do in Holland, with their compatriot commuters, at rural stations. I've only experience of using the network in the bigger cities where they can justifiably charge for parking spaces.

 

[lake district canary 4,836]

25 minutes ago, cornish sam said:

Is it though? Would you be fine if the smaller stations weren't being maintained in line with national policies? The car parks still need upkeep and maintenance, which isn't free. Also, if there is free parking nearby and only limited spaces then this will help the train passengers who need to park close actually get a space...

Edit: just to add, living in Cumbria for a while you must have seen how much public transport has been cut back and the effect that has on small communities. If a station is costing too much to run and maintain then there is always the danger that it will get shut, even the tiny boost of £100 per day from parking would help...

At Oxenholme station near Kendal, it costs a ridiculous amount to park, I think its £12 for 2 hours....when there are side roads and residential areas nearby that get clogged with rail users who can park outside houses for nothing. 

Also, I wouldn't have thought money from car parking goes to the individual stations concerned for maintanance anyway....it is just another case of rip off Britain and another big company trying to get more money for pretty much nothing.  

[Mello Yello 2,573]

Bad enough paying a tenner to gain access to the departure lounge at "Norwich International" Airport......I'm still (Awaiting Developments)...... 'HARRUMPH'!......

It's just plane greedy......

 

[cornish sam 1,040]

41 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

Upkeep and maintenance? I don't think you've traversed the Bittern or Wherry lines a great deal. The amount spent on upkeep and maintenance of the car parks is about the square root of zero. And if you think the £3 a day will go on "upkeep and maintenance", then I have a bridge to sell you.

I completely agree that communities rely on their service, so much so that I think opening up an enterprise people are reliant on, and in many cases have little to no choice but to use, to nefarious entities or foreign governments that use said reliance to chuck 8-figure dividends out year on year is a questionable policy for a government to make and sustain.

I wouldn't want to live within 100 yards of these stations anymore. Commuters with a little bit of sense will simply start leaving their cars on adjacent residential streets where they don't have to throw £3 into the Dutch government dividend fund.

I would be genuinely curious as to what Abellio do in Holland, with their compatriot commuters, at rural stations. I've only experience of using the network in the bigger cities where they can justifiably charge for parking spaces.

 

I'm with you on the idiocy of the rail franchise model and would not be unhappy were it all to be renationalised (though BR as it was did not work very well from a business perspective, with network rail having been spun off already that may be different now). But in terms of upkeep and maintenance even a patch of gravel needs to have pot holes filled, whether or not they are doing it is a different matter and perhaps now they have the £3 per day they will be able to afford to do it (dons his hard hat)...

[cornish sam 1,040]

31 minutes ago, lake district canary said:

At Oxenholme station near Kendal, it costs a ridiculous amount to park, I think its £12 for 2 hours....when there are side roads and residential areas nearby that get clogged with rail users who can park outside houses for nothing. 

Also, I wouldn't have thought money from car parking goes to the individual stations concerned for maintanance anyway....it is just another case of rip off Britain and another big company trying to get more money for pretty much nothing.  

Yes, that is a ridiculous amount, but I bet it discourages people not using the trains from using said carpark. The issue of clogging up the surrounding streets though is a council issue not a rail issue (do west coast manage that carpark?), Which is a bit of a cop out I know. 

The money for carparking might not go directly to the individual station, but I would imagine it goes to whoever manages that carpark and it will be tracked and then the profitability or cost of an individual asset would be used in discussions about ongoing investment into it.

[Matt Juler 211]

49 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

I would be genuinely curious as to what Abellio do in Holland, with their compatriot commuters, at rural stations. I've only experience of using the network in the bigger cities where they can justifiably charge for parking spaces.

 

Not in the Netherlands, but in German where Abellio run a lot of the local services too, we parked for the day at Halberstadt station.  It's quite a busy station with a carpark that must hold a couple of hundred cars.  As far as we could tell, and I didn't receive a ticket, it was completely free to park for as long as you like.

[canarydan23 4,770]

38 minutes ago, lake district canary said:

Also, I wouldn't have thought money from car parking goes to the individual stations concerned for maintanance anyway....it is just another case of rip off Britain and another big company trying to get more money for pretty much nothing.

We let them get away with it really.

I was on holiday in the Netherlands last month and one day we drove into the nearest city, Tilburg. It was proper grim, so after a brief wander and a visit to a Decathlon to treat the kids to something to entertain them for the rest of the holiday we thought we'd try and dash back to the car park to get back before we'd been there for an hour. I checked my watch as we got near the multi-storey and was gutted as we were about 8 minutes too late. I got to the machine and was surprised to see that it charged you for every 10 minutes you were there. I walked away thinking how good a system that was, but really, it should be what people demand; you've parked for 70 minutes so pay for 70 minutes, not 120.

But we're so used to being ripped off in Britain that we've become so empathetic we just nod along and accept it, and then on the rare occasion we get fair service, we react as though someone has committed some benevolent act when in reality we've just been treated as we should expect to be.

[canarydan23 4,770]

3 minutes ago, Matt Juler said:

Not in the Netherlands, but in German where Abellio run a lot of the local services too, we parked for the day at Halberstadt station.  It's quite a busy station with a carpark that must hold a couple of hundred cars.  As far as we could tell, and I didn't receive a ticket, it was completely free to park for as long as you like.

I suspected as much.

[splendidrush 720]

2 hours ago, Van wink said:

Around £125

So,£137 to go to London for the day. Sorry but I'd be driving down park round the corner to a tube station and probably save 50%