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Bikes outside Pembroke College CambridgeEric Pickles: Cambridge motorists (and shops) suffer due to council's focus on cycling "elite"
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles says that parking charges in Cambridge are too high and disadvantage motorists, and has suggested that prioritising cyclists over motorists favours an “elite” rather than ordinary people who want to use cars to visit shops.
Mr Pickles' comments come towards the end of a week in which he urged local authorities to do away with “Draconian” parking charges and infrastructure such as speed humps to make it easier for people to drive to high street shops.
But Cambridge City Council says that local retailers support its transport policies, which are focused on improving cycling infrastructure as well as buses to make it easier for people to get around.
The city has the highest proportion of cyclists in the UK – half the people who live there cycle at least once a week, and one in five commuter trips are made by bicycle.
Commenting on new planning guidance issued earlier this week, which is not obligatory for local authorities to follow, Mr Pickles warned that “anti-car dogma” meant that shoppers were increasingly deserting town centres for out-of-town superstores, or were shopping online.
He told Cambridge News that the East Anglian city was one of those to which his comments applied, and that while councils were free to set their own parking charges, he believed those set by the council – up to £26 for a day in a multi-storey car park was cited by the website – was too high.
“I accept there is a historic part of Cambridge that makes it not particularly friendly to cars and that’s the nature of having a very ancient city but, if we don’t put our plans together on how people live and how some of the elite think we should live, we are just asking for trouble,” he said.
“While this is not the sole cause of the high street’s problems, it is certainly a contributory factor.”
He conceded that it was impossible to destroy historic buildings to provide space for motor vehicles – little prospect of King’s College Chapel making way for a multi-storey car park, then – but maintained that cyclists should not be put first in the way that motorists have been in the past.
“What I’m seeking is not to replace one binding ideology with another, I’m asking for basic common sense and pragmatism,” he said.
Mr Pickles flagged up research from the Association of Town and City Management that claims to have found a strong correlation between the availability of parking spaces and footfall in town centres.
The body says that in viewing parking charges and fines as a means of raising revenue, they have lost sight of what the prime focus of parking management should be.
However, studies from elsewhere strongly suggest that policies that favour cycling do have a beneficial effect on the local economy.
Research commissioned by the City of Copenhagen presented at the Velo City Conference in Vienna in June found that while cyclists may spend less per visit than drivers when they go to local shops, over the course of a year, they spend more in aggregate.
Moreover, bicycles, not cars, are the most frequent mode of transport used to access local shops – but the lack of adequate cycle parking provision was a barrier to getting more people to use their bikes to go shopping.
Meanwhile, a recent article on the Seattle Transit Blog showed the startling impact of the custom of cyclists on the takings of retailers on one road where bike lanes had been installed and parking spaces removed, with revenues up as much as fourfold during the subsequent six months.
Responding to Mr Pickles’ comments, Councillor Tim Ward, Cambridge City Council’s executive councillor for sustainable transport, told Cambridge News that the secretary for state’s views were incorrect and that the council was doing the right thing in investing in cycle parking and other infrastructure.
He also pointed out that the issue of car parking in Cambridge were not typical, due to tourism and commuting; lying an hour by train from London, many residents commute to London for work, and the city is one of the most visited tourist destinations in the UK.
“If Mr Pickles is interested in the wellbeing of retailers, he should listen to them,” said Councillor Ward.
“Retailers want people coming in spending two to three hours shopping, they don’t want the car parks silting up with commuters and tourists and them not being available to shoppers, which would happen if we took the prices down.
“We are busy providing a lot more parking spaces in the city centre in the next few months, for something like 800 bicycles, and figures show it doesn’t take many cyclists to equal one car driver in terms of retail spend,” he added.
Cambridge was also visited this week by minister for cycling Norman Baker, who was there to see first-hand the city’s cycling infrastructure on the day he unveiled the government’s response to the Get Britain Cycling report. The response has met with a lukewarm reception from cyclists.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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49 comments
Fortnum&Mason? Good selection of teas, difficult to park - even a bike! Either chain to the railing or fold up and take inside. In that respect a Tesco could be an easier choice.
I live in Cambridge and do all my shopping by bike. The nearest Tesco is just across the river, over a nice new cycle bridge. I use a large courier bag, and have a flat bar singlespeed town bike. I use my car to shop at supermarkets about half a dozen times a year.
I have no car, and my town centre is 5 miles away. Shopping is accomplished via a front basket, a rack, panniers, bags and a trailer. And I still think car access to towns should be better. Almost everywhere on the continent ped. zones are rare, cars are parked virtually everywhere but the place is vibrant, even in France where the lunch-hour just never knows when to stop.
Also I think more thought should be given to that 'elite' label. In this world of zero-hour contracts and belt-tightening a site which reviews wheels upwards of £1500 a pair might justifiably be given that tag.
We shouldn't forget though that this site isn't representative of all cyclists, not by a very long way. The 'elite' Pickles is talking about are much more likely to be knocking about on Raleigh Pioneers than they are to be buying £1500 carbon wheels.
Actually I think they are more likely to be swanning around on Pashleys and my point still applies.
I don't have one.
Me neither. But I do do my Tesco shop on my bike (not round the aisles, mind). My wife and I share a small car, on which we pay no 'road tax' as it's exempt. She needs it to get to work and we ferry our baby boy around in it. Otherwise cycling is my main way of getting around (that and walking). I wouldn't regard our set-up as 'elite'.
Re. 'elite' - that might apply to this website at a push (which, to be fair, is a site dedicated to the sport & pasttime of road cycling) but not to the broad group of 'people who ride bikes sometimes' to whom Eric Pillocks refers.
Let's be honest, the guy is an old-fashioned hang-'em-flog-'em right-wing Thatcherite who sees in cyclists a group who he can easily demonize as effete liberal-lefty Guardian readers.
Of course not.
I'd take the GT with the pannier rack.
(Actually, this is a bit of a lie - I'd usually just walk)
IMO, Cambridge has painted itself into a infrastructural position where it has little choice other than to favour cyclists.
Yes, those pesky medieval builders and their narrow streets... couldn't they have foreseen that one day, fat people in large metal contraptions would want to leave them all day taking up public space, free of charge, and make the streets wide enough to accommodate them?
"Yes, those pesky medieval builders and their narrow streets... couldn't they have foreseen that one day, fat people in large metal contraptions would want to leave them all day taking up public space, free of charge, and make the streets wide enough to accommodate them?"
I was thinking about issues such as the positioning of 'out of town retail parks' within city limits, resulting in ineffectual park and ride public transport during peak periods etc. (particulary from the east side of the city). Thanks for jumping to the conclusion that I was talking about the historical centre of the city though, and making a witty(?) remark about your incorrect assumption. Par for the course on other forums, why don't we try to keep this one a cut above the rest?
I apologise if I jumped to the wrong conclusion, but you didn't give much away with your original post. At least my response has prompted you to back this up with a bit more detail on what you were getting at, so I'd like to think my contribution wasn't entirely worthless, even if its wittiness was questionable.
Oh, it appears I took too long writing my comment.
Oh, Eric Pickles. Please just stop.
Blimey - first to comment. Do I get a prize?
If parking restrictions were lifted in Cambridge the city centre would grind to a halt.
The fact that 50% of residents are cycling at least once a week might give some indication of how Mr Pickles views might go down in Cambridge.
Oh, and one thing Cambridge City centre doesn't suffer from is a lack of footfall on its streets. You can hardly move on the pavements on a Saturday.
it's because Pickles is so fat he doesn't like the thought of anybody who doesn't need a reinforced Range Rover like he does. Just because he can't get down to the shops without 2 tonnes of carbon-burning support, doesn't mean most people can't.
Sod off Eric! Cambridge suffers from road junctions which are unfriendly to cyclists and pedestrians because the County Council is so desperate not to reduce capacity for cars.
No sympathy for Fatty Pickles but this statement is not true. I've been involved in designing traffic schemes, cycleways, bridges etc for Cambridgeshire for a decade and there has been a consistent trend of re-assigning road space to cycles and pedestrians away from cars.
It may not be perfect and you may not like the balance the way it is now but when you consider that the whole historic core of Cambridge used to be open to car traffic and compare that to how it is now I think you'll agree things have moved on.
And £26 to park is expensive (I know its much cheaper in the P&R sites - funny that) even if it doesn't stop people queueing for 20 minutes to get into the Grand Arcade car park.
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