I don’t know how fast you walk, @Anotherjohn, I’d love to see anyone getting from their car in the Perry Vale car park to the pools in less than five minutes! Two? Nah. It’s somwhere between five and ten minutes for me at normal walking pace. I can imagine it easily being more then ten with a toddler. Not that any of these times are actually that onerous. But when you see an empty space outside the Archie Parker and you’ve just walked up the hill…
Two free hours in the Perry Vale car park would be great. Do they think that would be used by train users? Is it long enough to go somewhere and come back?
Taken at a stroll by a reasonably fit 5’10 adult male without shopping bags, prams/buggies/wheelchairs or very young, elderly or slow-moving people or animals.
Location of Forest Hill Town Centre - main traffic light junction.
Time to walk there from Perry Vale car park entrance - 1 minute 30
or, from London Road exit of Sainsburys car park - 1 minute.
Time to walk from Barclays Bank to swimming pools - 4 minutes.
So add another 30 seconds to get from car to roadside at Perry Vale. Time to traffic lights then becomes 2 minutes. Time to @TheArchieParker or pools, another 4. That’s 6 minutes. I have little legs. Make it 7. We are therefore in agreement.
I agree that a footbridge from the car park would be ideal and we are working with a firm of architects to see what might be possible as part of a complete rebuild of the station. Don’t expect anything to happen soon.
Apologies for dwelling on something that’s slightly off-topic but I will get off my soap box after this quick one.
Yes, Rachel. But my thing is purely about getting people parked-up and into the centre of town and, once they’re there, they don’t need to rush. Our pitifully few 30 or 40 minute on-street bays don’t work for people going to the pools or for a relaxing coffee and sandwich - let alone a hairdressing or beauty appointment.
In my opinion, as someone who’s had too many abortive dealings with good independent businesses [who were contemplating a move here], Forest Hill needs to be a place where its visitors can pop in and out of a few shops and go for a coffee at their leisure; and until the people who make decisions can find a way of squaring that circle we’re not going to get very far.
I also completely agree about the footbridge, but do know this is something @Michael & the fab FH Society have been working on for a while & will take millions of pounds to do this.
Also you have to consider that if the parking time is 20% longer than 20% less people will be able to park. Even 1hr isn’t enough to go to a restaurant or swimming. So if that’s what you want you really need to park somewhere else. There really isn’t many spot anyway so if people had 1hr it wouldn’t do much for local trade. I’d argue it would be worse for those businesses that need more drop ins.
Parking on Dartmouth Road should be 30 minutes for people to pop into shops. You want longer then Park across the tracks at your leisure, I won’t go down the time it takes to get from there as it has been done to death. Disabled, I am sure provision will he made for you.
Some interesting points above - but my question was whether (given that the residents of Thorpewood Ave are unlikely to get a CPZ) slightly longer parking times on Dartmouth Road would help them.
I suspect that most of the people who park on the lower part of Thorpewood Avenue during the day are either commuters who drive in from the outer suburbs to get a cheaper journey from a zone 3 station, or people who work locally - teachers at Holy Trinity school?
Can you tell us more about this, or tell us how to find out? Who is the “we” working with the architects?
There seems to be dedicated group of volunteers trying to make things work (doing the Council’s job?) and I do appreciate that. But how does anyone, who isn’t actually part of the conversation, find out what’s happening?
‘We’ are committee members of the Forest Hill Society and Sydenham Society. The ideas are in the early stages and when there is something to show we will share it with members of the Forest Hill Society and the wider public.
At present this is quite a speculative project and we are lucky to have local architects who are interested in pursuing this project. It might not lead anywhere but it is well worth trying out different ideas to see what might work.
So I wrote to the Highways Dept asking whether they might consider extending the 30-minute limit on parking on Dartmouth Road. This is the reply I got today.
Thank you for your enquiry and I apologise for the long delay in getting back to you.
The short stay bays on Dartmouth Road, with a time limit of 30 minutes, are there to encourage a quick turn-around of parking to assist the business of local traders. Increasing the maximum stay of these bays is not something we would consider at this time, as it would not be in keeping with the purpose of the provision.
I am sorry to have to disappoint you.
I’d be interested to hear if others think that a longer limit than 30 minutes would be a good or a bad thing.
In my opinion, a maximum of 45 minutes, given the limited number of bays, would do it. That, in conjunction with Lewisham giving up to 2hrs free in the Perry Vale car park and with the 2hrs option that we already have in the Sainsburys car park - IF IT’S SHOUTED LOUD ENOUGH (so that people take advantage of these concessions in the town centre) - can help the traders immensely.