Marlow Town Council offers ‘win:win’ parking solution to Bucks County Council

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Marlow Town Council, in conjunction with the town’s Chamber of Trade and Commerce and The Marlow Society, has come up with an innovative alternative to enforcing limited waiting bays in the town’s High Street. This could potentially provide Bucks County Council (BCC) with the ideal solution to the ongoing parking debate, whereby they have proposed paid-for parking on town centre streets.

The Council has sent a request to the Head of Transport at BCC, Mark Shaw, suggesting a parking disc system be implemented in town. BCC has agreed to look into the option.

“We know this can work,” Jocelyn Towns, Marlow Town Mayor, said. “The idea will solve one of BCC’s major issues with Marlow’s parking system, which is the difficulty and complexity of dealing with overstay parkers.

“We are suggesting the introduction of ‘parking clocks’, which are used extensively in UK towns, including Harrogate, Carlisle and Scarborough. The system could be implemented at virtually zero cost to the tax payer and it could be put in place very quickly, and create an instant payback.”

Marlow Town Council has offered to procure the clocks, which are set by the driver at the time of parking and displayed in car windscreens so that enforcement officers can easily see what time the car was parked. Retailers would be encouraged to distribute them to visitors and they would be made available to residents.   

The Town Council believes the system would immediately solve BCC’s issue of enforcement and remove any justification for parking meters. It lists other benefits of using parking discs, including an immediate increase in enforcement efficiency, hence increasing revenue; ease of replication of the system, as other towns are already using it; no capital expenditure other than some signage; and significant officer time and resources saved on the consultation process.

“We would encourage BCC to adopt this proposal as soon as possible” Mayor Towns said. “It seems like a win:win for all concerned.”

Article author: Paul Merchant

About the author: Founded MyMarlow.co.uk in its original version back in 2000 - yes the internet DID exist back then. Brought up in Marlow, went to school here, now has children at the same schools. Quite clearly loves all things Marlow - hence spending over 2 decades doing this!

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