Tackling ‘The Thame Shuffle’ And Other Parking Problems

THAME Town Council had a demonstration last night of the problems facing town centre businesses battling for parking spaces with visitors and town centre residents.
Speaking in support of an appeal by a Transport Working Group of the 21st Century Thame Partnership, Mr Pramindar Mankoo, who runs a hair clinic in Upper High Street, was ‘interrupted’ by the alarm on his mobile phone. The ploy graphically demonstrated he said, what fellow business people have to deal with several times during their working day. To avoid getting a parking ticket and having to pay a fine, they have to move their cars between the three hour parking in the Market place, and the two hour parking opposite, currently policed by a traffic warden – an activity labelled ‘The Thame Shuffle’ by Working Group member, Mr Gary Ambrosini.
A dedicated business parking area, for which perhaps annual permits could be purchased for a modest price, could be part of the solution, suggested Mr Ambrosini.
The group were presenting the results of a survey and subsequent report called Parking For All, which included highlighting the current difficulties facing residents and workers in the town, and what they saw as a likely exacerbation of problems once so-called Decriminilisation of parking comes in around April 2008.
At that time, traffic warden Peggy Long MBE, who also spoke to the council, will be out of a job, and the control of parking will be managed by the county council, probably using private wardens – which, if the experience of other towns who are already under the new regime is anything to go by, will not be as flexible towards residents or businesses.

To help town centre residents, it was suggested an extension of the current residents permit scheme for those people living in the town centre, could cover other residential streets near by with parking restrictions, including North Street, Nelson Street and Park Street.

Town councillors in general, with one or two notable exceptions, were appreciative of the work put in by the group and accepted that there were problems and possible solutions.
It was resolved that residents parking would be tackled by the Planning committee working with both OCC and SODC, as well as the Transport Working Group, and that the problems of Commuter parking would be lead by Thame First, formerly the Thame Chamber of Commerce.

Photo: Courtesy of BBC