Re: B&Q self checkout machines

[Ophelia]

Indeed! More than enough for me, anyway:)

[Mark]

It's like that around here too. Charges on Sundays. And it's very expensive too. Almost no free parking (and none near the town centres). Also very expensive public transport. As a result less people shop in the towns anymore.

[Mark]

Much as I would hate to spend 2 hours in Tesco, they do have a "restaurant" in many and, if they want people to use it, allowing them more time would be useful. Also parents with babies or disabled children may take longer than average for shopping.

[Mark]

You are correct. It's more about forgetting, laziness, not having any change than fear of theft. When one car of mine was stolen and recovered the small change was still in the ashtray where I left it. It was nicked by someone in the recovery company though.

[Bob Martin]

I live near Portsmouth and parking charges in the area have gone up by 4 to 8 times in the last few years. The car park in my nearest village went from a minumum of 5p to a minimum of 30p with the result that nobody uses it. I rarely see more than half a dozen cars in it now whereas it always used to be full. I bet some d*****ad in the local council offices is wondering why revenue is down by 95% and is considering another increase to make it up.

I recently spent 10 days driving round SE France - never once paid for car parking.

[Mark]

If you think 30p is expensive then don't come here! Parking is normally £1.30 for one hour, £2.50 for two hours etc. (pay and dismay)

-- and that's a cleared building site full of potholes. Decent car parks can be even more expensive.

When I am on holiday in the UK I am the only one not moaning about the parking costs. Even very popular places are cheaper than here.

The council often justify parking cost rises to "encourage the use of public transport". However the bus company always put up their prices at the same time. Coincidence, I think not.

[Tim W]

Mark wibbled on Tuesday 03 November 2009 09:12

And there should be a bloody law against both pay and display and machines that don't give change. I hated carrying 25 quid in change every week to feed the station car park machine, and I hate going shopping or to the hospital and having to guess how long I'll be.

[Andy Burns]

Wouldn't be so bad if they gave you extra time pro-rata for the change they'd withheld, e.g council ones here used to be 60p/hour but if you put in a quid, no change and you still only got an hour - no wonder people quite happily give their "non-transferable" ticket to someone else on the way out.

[dennis]

There are new machine about which require you to enter your reg and it is printed on the ticket.

[Andy Burns]

Yes, they have started replacing with them, the phrasing is interesting, it says "enter up to three letters from your car's registration plate" OWTTE, so one, or zero letters would count as "up to" wouldn't it?

[Dave Liquorice]

Yes, but what the destructions say and what the machine will let you do is another matter...

[Tony Bryer]

Conversely there is no reason why a machine that accepts 10p coins shouldn't give you 10p worth of time if that's all you need, whilst the ones in LB Richmond generally had a 40p or 60p minimum.

[Bob Eager]

Hardly 'new' - had them for years (pre the new registration formats). Most of ours only needed the digits, and the user interface for those that needed letters was so poor that a lot of people couldn't work out how to use them (they've now been changed to 'number only').

Since there are only about 18 possible numbers in the new registration scheme (so far) you can usually find someone with a matching number part.

[Steve Firth]

I had the misfortune to stop in Fareham, Hants this week. I needed to collect a package that a relative ordered on t'internet from a shop on the High Street. The shop was very wary of sending out mail while the strikes are threatened, so I offered to drop in and pick up the package as I drive past Fareham from time to time.

It turns out driving past is the right thing to do. It's a minimum of

90p to park, robbing machine that doesn't give change and constantly circling traffic wardens.

[The Medway Handyman]

I've complained to Medway Council about that. Apparently they don't have the technology. Must be real rocket science to build a machine that give change or extra time.

[Bob Eager]

Tell them to look at the ones Canterbury City Council use in some of their car parks. The big one off St Radigunds has machines that give you time for whatever amount you put in, AFAIR.

[Frank Erskine]

On Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:27:33 +0000, Tim W had this to say:

Parking at or around our local main hospital is dreadful. I just realised the other day (when about to visit a fiend) that there's a 'free' shuttle minibus service to/from the hospital (financed, I think, by the Hospital trust) that runs every 30 minuets to/from my local Sainsbury car park which is about a 10 minuet walk from here (although I usually drive there, being a lazy sod). I gather that JS are quite happy about it, because hospital visitors tend to buy the ubiquitous grapes and Lucozade there to take to the patients.

[Bruce]

I have to visit the local hospital quite regularly as an outpatient. Up to two years ago, parking was difficult. Since then, a number of "improvements" have been made.

A significant part of the hospital trust's land has been sold off for housing. An ASDA store is being built on hospital land. Several new hospital buildings have been built on former car parks. Part of the largest public car park has been given over to hospital staff. It is now virtually impossible to get a parking space unless you arrive before 8:15 AM.

Fortunately, a company has been employed to operate the car park ticketing system, issue penalty tickets and, in extremis, clamp cars that are illegally parked.

Oh, what fun. ;-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Same here. Not only is the car park expensive, but the council have matched those rates in surrounding streets. About double the normal rate elsewhere in the borough.

There's one bus service that goes through the hospital grounds with stops at different places. Every 20 minutes - but not free.

[Mark]

And then there's the car parks you visit for the first time and you are still expected to have the right change, even before you know how much it costs.

And the pay and dismay car parks where it costs a different amount depending on where you park. Once I got a ticket because I parked on the wrong side of an invisible line.