Some local business owners have reached the end of their tether with the parking problems in the village and the lack of support they feel that Cheshire East Council provides.
Heather Wienholt explained "We have lost heart recently. The reason for this is that over the last few years we have lost so many spaces to resident schemes, an increase in office workers and the loss of the festival hall. We cling to what parking we have, however London Road does not have the one hour turnover, the Parade car park now has the added pressure of a large Waitrose and Clifton Street still remains a kick in the teeth!
"Letters, emails, meetings have all resulted in nothing.... in fact a big fat nothing.
"The few traders left in the village are not an especially loud voice, but I reckon most of the electorate would still want us to be here in 5 years time, just to keep the village character alive.
"I look in many other towns and do not see the same situation as we have here in Alderley Edge, no matter how hard we work the lack of support from Cheshire East is slowly driving the independent shops away from Alderley."
Nicki Moreton, owner of Tuula boutique, commented "The parking in the village, especially since the development work of the new refurbished Waitrose, is a nightmare, having a detrimental effect on all of the retailers in the village.
"We have noticed a significant drop in footfall in the village, customers we have spoken to on the phone have given up on coming into the village having - driven round in circles trying to find somewhere to park.
"In the last 12 months my rent and rates, along with other retailers in the village, have increased ridiculously. We are seeing more and more independent shops closing down. Soon, unless something serious is done, the village will only exist with cafe bars, restaurants and supermarkets, which is a very sad affair. Support is needed not just off retailers but off the local people to help bring back a lovely traditional small village with some special independent shops."
Judy O'Brien, owner of Mr Simms Olde Sweet Shoppe, said "Footfall is down, parking is dire and people are avoiding Alderley. South Street long stay car park is usually full at 9.15am and Waitrose is now packed. We frequently have frustrated customers in who have spent ages trying to park.
"We desperately need support from all businesses in the village and local authorities as a matter of urgency to ease the situation and thus maintain the village environment with a variety of businesses.
"More traders and residents might wish to support the quest for more parking as we are all stakeholders in the village."
In June Heather, Nicki and Judy met with Cllr Frank Keegan and Steph Cordon, Head of Communities at Cheshire East Council, to discuss the parking issues in the village and potential solutions.
Amongst the ideas they talked about was changing the resident parking scheme on Clifton Street to a shared space scheme so non-residents could also use the spaces for short periods.
Heather explained "Clifton Street is a source of great frustration for the high street shops when customers are forced to drive past empty spaces, and then often fail to find a space at all. A one hour or even half hour shared scheme would be immensely equitable. This would also ensure the street's parking arrangements are consistent with guidelines which recommend streets leading onto a commercial shopping area are shared spaces."
The enforcement team were asked to specifically monitor the Clifton Street area for a month during the summer and concluded that the number of spaces available each day were "a minority" and therefore the residents parking scheme is highly unlikely be altered at this stage. However, Cheshire East Council confirmed they would arrange for all the required signs and lines to be installed so the one hour parking on London Road could be enforced.
Writing in July, Steph Cordon said "What we are going to do and have been doing to be fair is chivvying up the requirement to have the lines and signs on London Road rectified so that we can encourage a greater turnaround of vehicles specifically for shoppers, hopefully deterring and putting a stop to all-day parking on London Road.
"The greater the turnaround, the better availability of spaces for shoppers."
Much to the frustration of some local business owners the work is still not complete as they are apparently waiting for a sign to be placed at one location - until the final sign has been erected enforcement cannot be carried out.
Heather said "A promised sign has not materialized and they have no intention of reviewing the Clifton Street problem.
"We don't expect Alderley to magically expand and infinite parking to suddenly become available. However even our most simple requests are not being listened to. At this point it is easy to loose heart in Alderley as a shopping high street when our council cannot even put one sign up for us!"
Nicki added "Having instigated and attended a meeting with the Stef and Frank I was promised a follow up meeting after one month which never happened, and four months later still hasn't happened.
"We were supposed to see the change of parking on the main Alderley road, change of parking to short stay on Clifton Street, policing of the parking in the village, and things happening to move the allotment holders to get things underway for the conversion into long stay parking.
"Nothing has happened!"
Photo: Nicki Moreton and Heather Wienholt.
Comments
Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below.
Personally I do like the shared space initiative employed in Poynton, as it makes the centre far more pedestrian friendly; however, it does rely on people being prepared to walk a short distance to the shops, rather than expecting a parking space to be available directly outside.
When I was little, most people wouldn't have dreamt of taking their car a few hundred yards to the shops; they walked and supported our independent retailers practically on a daily basis. Sadly those days are gone, along with almost all of the retailers.
But there are many much more recent. Now there is a bypass I really do expect what there was a few years ago - a place to stop just to buy a paper. Limited to 15-20 mins. The idea that I should spend even 50p to buy something that is £1 is a joke. I will just go somewhere else. Small shops can rely on passing trade. Encourage it.