Councillor Joanna Biddolph has commented on the survey - paid for by Birchgrove, Chiswick Flower Market and Hounslow Council - on the use of the central Chiswick car park saying that it is highly misleading, not least as it is based on judiciously selected criteria. In particular, the hours and days chosen for the survey exclude the times and days when the central Chiswick car park is at its fullest - but includes hours when it is least used. For hospitality businesses, parking is needed most on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings up to at least 11pm when the car park is usually full; other evenings can also bring a high demand for parking with the car park 80 per cent to 90 per cent full. Yet the survey hours ended at 7pm. There are other misleading calculations, too, including the 7am start time when the car park is little used until shops and businesses open, most of which open between 9am and 10am. Overall, Jo concludes that the proposal to reduce the car park to 19 unrestricted spaces spaces in a town’s main central car park makes no economic sense whatsoever, especially as Chiswick is a destination and as our traders rely on visitors from outside the area for their survival.
There are several problems with this survey.
Hours surveyed
Surveying the car park between 7am and 7pm was a fundamental error. Many hospitality businesses do their best trade in the evenings and need the car park to be available for their customers until late at night. Most nights the central car park is 80 per cent to 90 per cent full. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights the car park is almost always full until at least 11pm. The survey should have included these evening hours, when the car park is most used - yet they were excluded from the survey. The photo illustrating this article shows the car park at 20.11 on Wednesday, 24th January 2024 - it is full.
The central car park predominantly services businesses that open between 9am and 10am. Starting the survey at 7am meant it included hours when the car park is less used, making the parking need appear less than it is in reality. This, too, means the survey was misleading.
The hours chosen for the survey - 7am to 7pm - represent the hours when council parking charges apply. After 7pm parking is free. Those evening hours might have no economic value to Hounslow council - but they are economically valuable to Chiswick's hospitality businesses and therefore the economy of the town. These businesses pay huge business rates, and fees and charges for outdoor tables and chairs, and A-boards, to the council. The survey should cover the hours when the car park is valuable to the town, not just the hours when the spaces are valuable to the council because parking charges apply. It should also include facts about the council's income from parking charges, and fines issued to parkers who park without paying, or in restricted spaces. Jo referred to a conversation with former leader of the council Steve Curran who dismissed income to the council from parking as "trivial". The value of parking to Chiswick's local economy is far from trivial. That should be what drives parking provision.
Further, any survey needs to be specific to each parking location as there will be differences in demand depending on the area a car park or parking spaces serve. People try to park as close as they can to the business or service they want to use. This survey does not cater for these local nuances. Instead it treats all the spaces it has included as if they are all used similarly. They are not.
Averages are meaningless
Anyone who understands retail and hospitality knows that the best shopping days of the week are Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays so assessing parking need against averages across other days of the week is also misleading. The survey shows Fridays and Saturdays are busiest but there are peaks close to full capacity on other days. Sundays are already compromised by the loss of the whole of the central car park to market days plus, on flower market Sundays, the loss of the whole of the Bond Street car park which is taken up by traders' empty vans making that car park wholly uneconomic for the council and for Chiswick.
The Hounslow Pound
For years, the council has championed the importance of the Hounslow Pound - keeping money spent in Hounslow in Hounslow. Most market traders come from outside Chiswick, and outside the borough, and drive our money away to be spent in their local economies. Shoppers parking in the central car park, in the Bond Street car park or on side roads to shop in our bricks and mortar businesses leave their money in our local economy. Hounslow council continues to emphasise the importance and value of the Hounslow Pound - which I agree with wholeheartedly. We need to maintain parking in central Chiswick, not reduce it, to respect the value of the Hounslow Pound.
Car parks should cater for peak demand and should not be full all the time
Additionally, the implication from the survey is that spaces aren’t needed if they aren't used all the time and especially if the car park isn’t full all the time. That shows a profound lack of understanding about how car parks should work. As anyone who has circled up and down through a multi-storey car park knows, or who has driven along Turnham Green Terrace and Devonshire Road not being able to find a space knows, it can be frustrating. Outsiders are less forgiving and give up. Being full all the time is not useful as there should always be some spare capacity to allow for a change over of spaces to allow vehicles to come and go. There will be peak hours and quieter hours in all car parks, everywhere. Provision should be for the peaks. Demand should be take from the busiest days and times, not from averages across a selection of days and hours and locations as if the peaks didn't exist.
The real result of this survey
The conclusion of this survey, if analysed according to actual demand not averages, is that current car parking provision at the central car park is appropriate for and needed by Chiswick. It is essential to encourage people to come and spend money in Chiswick to support our local retail, hospitality and service economy. Being able to park without frustration is therefore also essential.
While the promoters of this survey wanted to show a reduced need, residents told me they have found the car park extremely full when they have been out recently. Frequent roadworks on other roads reduces parking availability too, and makes access to parking complicated not just for residents but also for visitors who don't know Chiswick well. Any reduction in parking overall puts off shoppers, especially from beyond Chiswick and the borough, threatening the success of Chiswick’s traders.
Who parks in Chiswick?
The survey misses another crucial point - who drives here and why. A survey Jo conducted almost a year ago of the value of the central car park, showed that, of the 46 drivers she interviewed over two hours, only eight were from Chiswick. People new to Chiswick, or who are infrequent visitors, are less likely to know where car parking is, or where to look for it, beyond the central core. The main Chiswick car park on Chiswick High Road is their best likelihood for finding parking. It is badly signed and, of course, unavailable on market Sundays, but at least some of them find it and use it, spending their money in our local economy.
Parking spaces must be retained in the car park and better signage is needed
New visitors to Chiswick will not know which roads to go down to find other places to park, might not know about the Bond Street car park or where there are other spaces on residential roads. If they come to Chiswick and find there is no space in the central car park, they might drive away and never come back. That is money lost to our local economy. Additionally, many side roads either have extended their CPZ restrictions, or are extending their CPZ restrictions, because of the pressure on spaces from shoppers particularly on market Sundays. We should not limit parking still further. We should advertise existing parking options far more cleverly.
Police station car parking spaces have been lost
The former police station is being redeveloped without any parking, apart from two parking spaces in the central car park, formerly reserved for the police, which will be allocated to Birchgrove. That is no loss and no gain. Meanwhile, while in use by the police, the plot provided over 20 spaces at the back. Birchgrove will not have any parking at the back which will instead be developed into flats and a garden for residents. There is a great deal of concern locally that the central car park will be taken up by staff of and visitors to Birchgrove and its residents, without them spending money locally - but while taking the parking spaces away from shoppers or diners who want to spend their money here. This loss of over 20 spaces has been ignored by the survey.
Parking to be reduced to 19 unrestricted spaces
The flower market team claims that its proposals for the central car park will reduce the number of unrestricted parking spaces from 47 to 33 (see image below). Although the definitive map that shows the number of spaces now is hard to find, and the drawing that shows the flower market's proposals isn't clear, the fact is that 12 of these 33 spaces will be for EV charging which, in Hounslow, means they can only be used for charging EVs and are therefore unusable by non-EV vehicles. There is a high chance that residents who currently find it hard to find EV chargers will use these EV spaces for charging. There will also be two bays for Blue Badge parking and loading. Therefore, the number of unrestricted spaces - spaces that anyone can park in - will be reduced to 19. To have so few spaces in a town’s main central car park makes no economic sense whatsoever, especially as Chiswick is a destination and as our traders rely on customers from beyond Chiswick for their survival.
Conclusion
This car park survey is highly misleading and is an attempt to disguise the very real reductions in parking there will be. Further, it is another divisive move in a town where traders need a period of calm and consolidation, not more disruption and fear for the future. Car parking spaces have an economic value to the town. We should value them, too. Losing any spaces puts Chiswick’s retail, hospitality and service economy seriously at risk. We owe our hardworking traders, business owners who run retail, hospitality and service business for us to enjoy, more than measures that will lead to their failure.
Survey results in full are attached; see link below.
Drawing below and caption taken from an article in The Chiswick Herald (the proposal that includes this and other drawings isn't easy to find on the Chiswick Flower Market website):
