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[1]St Helier Free Saturday parking proposal
A popular argument with retailers is, if free parking was provided on Saturdays it will encourage people to spend time shopping in town and engaging in town leisure activities. The intention is to provide a parking incentive which places town on a level playing field with out of town retailers, such as Red Houses. It is anticipated this would draw in money which would be otherwise be spent with out of town shops, leisure activities and the internet.
EDD has asked TTS to evaluate the loss of revenue from such a policy, so that it might consider the benefits of the States funding such a scheme. TTS has undertaken survey work to ascertain the likely loss in revenue to the Car Park Trading Fund and LibertyBus, resulting from passengers switching to cars in response to free parking. The following table details those direct losses:
Estimated Revenue Loss |
| Free Shopper Parking Only | Free Commuter and Shopper Parking |
Car Park Revenue |
| £4,900 | £8,900 |
LibertyBus Revenue |
| £1,100 | £1,900 |
Lost revenue per Saturday |
| £6,000 | £10,800 |
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Lost revenue per annum |
| £312,000 | £561,600 |
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In order to undertake the calculations, TTS had to commission on-street surveys to establish the propensity of bus users to switch to car use and ascertain the effect the policy might have on traffic and car park capacity. In order to understand the likely benefits if the policy, the opportunity was used to collect further shopper behaviour information such as spend by mode of travel, spend by duration of stay, parking preferences, reasons for internet shopping and potential changes in spend as a result of the free parking policy. This data was supplemented by information provided by the States' Statistics Unit. For discussion, this study is detailed in the attached technical note by TTS's framework consultant Parsons Brinkerhoff, summarised in pages 1 to 4.
The report estimates that the net benefit of the proposed policy to the Island (Benefits to Retail Trade[2] – Costs[3]) ranges as follows:
Benefit to St Helier Traders1
Free Shopper Parking Only
High Range Estimate £7,100 Low Range Estimate £900 Free Commuter and Shopper Parking
High Range Estimate £7,100 Low Range Estimate £900
Costs2 Weekly Net
Benefit
£7,300 (£300) £6,700 (£5,900)
£11,500 (£4,500) £11,500 (£10,600)
Total annual net benefit to Island
(£15,600) (£306,800)
(£234,000) (£551,200)