New car parking rules won’t attract shoppers
IN these days of retail decline and businesses struggling to retain customers, you would think that offering customers incentives to shop with them would be a priority?
Not so with Coventry’s Central Six, they have opted for the exact opposite approach!
For years, like so many Coventrians, I have parked at Central Six, walked into town to shop at, say, the market and then popped back to finish off at the mall. No problem, as long as you don’t exceed the three hours’ free parking, everyone wins; the customer, the businesses, the city centre environment.
Imagine my surprise then when I parked up and proceeded to walk out when I was confronted by an individual calling me “mate”, instructing me that if I left the site I would be subject to a £70 fine. At first I thought it was to do with Godiva Festival parking but... “no mate, new rules”. So I left the site.
What is the point behind this idiocy in a city already struggling to attract visitors?
I can shop at Boots, Top Man and Next in town, there are plenty of shoe shops and clothes shop too, so sorry to those businesses at Central Six – you’ve now lost my custom.
I’ll miss popping into Hobbycraft for the odd gift or stuff for relatives’ kids but there are plenty of similar shops in Kenilworth, Leamington and Warwick with cheaper parking.
Good call Central Six – you’ve contributed to Coventry’s continued decline. Ian Wilson Coventry
Time to invest in a greener approach
THE £95,000 ‘splashed out’ by the council to provide each house with a food caddy (July 8) is, of course, only a tenth of the £1 million a year that will be saved by collecting waste and recycling on alternate weeks and collecting food waste separately.
Coventry is also saving several million pounds a year due to cancelling their proposed PFI incinerator in 2010. This followed a campaign by Coventry Friends of the Earth who argued for an alternative system of high recycling which is proven to be far cheaper and greener. But the council’s decision to keep the old incinerator has resulted in its recycling rate falling from a low 37 per cent in 2010 to 30 per cent today (Source: www.letsrecycle.com/councils/ league-tables).
Forty per cent of household waste is food waste and collecting it separately would mean it could be composted or treated by anaerobic digestion to produce carbon-free gas and a valuable fertiliser.
If the council went further and invested the money it invests in the incinerator in better recycling sorting, re-use and repair centres, and even its own anaerobic digester, more materials could be processed in Coventry and many local jobs would be created.
If it linked up with our university research departments, Coventry could lead the way in the design of advanced materials and processes to enable a ‘circular economy’, where all materials are returned into productive use. Jane Green Coventry and Warwickshire Friends of the Earth Coundon
Why splash out on science fiction?
SO Coventry City Council is applying for funding for driverless cars?
This announcement comes the same week as news of bin collections being cut back to save money. Plus, I cannot believe this so-called government is giving money away to fund science fiction, whilst announcing further austerity cuts. Spend it on the NHS. John Ashby Woodway Park
Lack of signs does not make it right
JOE Rukin thinks that it’s OK to break the law if there is no warning of ANPR cameras (July 8).
Does that mean if he captures evidence of his house being burgled on CCTV, but there is no warning signs, that the burglar goes free?
Come on Joe, you did the crime, so pay the fine. Mike Ball Coventry