As part of a policy to introduce parking charges at selected parks across the city, Birmingham City Council is launching a consultation into introducing charging at a park in the centre of Northfield.
If proposals go ahead, Victoria Park will be the second in Birmingham – after Cannon Hill Park – to have charges implemented.
Why charge?
The council says that the parking charges will be used to support parks, saying funds raised will: “provide an income stream to both protect services and facilities within parks, as well as improving parks where we can.”
Seven city parks – including Victoria Common, Lickey Hills Country Park and Cannon Hill Park – were identified as suitable for the introduction of charging in June 2017. Charges were introduced at Cannon Hill Park in October 2017, but none of the others identified have had charges imposed as yet.
About Victoria Common
Victoria Common is a 21 acre Victorian park and is bordered by Northfield Shopping Centre, Church Road, St Laurence Road and Heath Road South.
Formerly known as Bradley’s Field, it was re-landscaped as a public park in 1897, to mark Queen Victoria’s 1897 Diamond Jubilee.
The park is popular with dog walkers and families and has a number of facilities including; enclosed play areas, football pitches, a picnic garden, an outdoor gym, a multi-use games area and tennis courts.
It also hosts events, such as Northfield Carnival.
The car park lies just off Church Road, on Meeting House Lane, next to Northfield’s Quaker Meeting House.
The charges
The proposal is to charge for parking between 8am and 6pm every day. With the park opening at 7am, parking will be free for that first hour.
Charges will be payable using Pay and Display machines n the car park or by mobile phone using the RingGo service
Proposed pricing structure:
- Up to 1 hour: 50p
- Up to 4 hours: £2
- All day: £3
- Blue Badge holders: Free
The benefits?
The council say that charging at Victoria Common will bring the following benefits:
- Reinvestment in the park
- Improved pedestrian access to the park on Meeting House Lane and improvements to the car park itself
- Provision of designated disabled parking bays
- Traffic enforcement officer presence may deter antisocial behaviour
- Help BCC Parks department to meet budget reduction targets
- Allow park users to use the car park
An initial usage survey by the council of people using the car park found that only 12% of those sampled were actually using the park.
Have Your Say
When: The consultation runs between Monday 22nd July and Sunday 18th August 2019.
What: You can view the proposals online
Survey: You can take the online survey on the Birmingham BeHeard website. Some face-to-face questionnaires will also be conducted in the park on random days throughout the period of consultation.
Drop-in sessions
Residents and park users are invited to attend one of two consultation drop-in sessions to speak to members of the project team, discuss the proposals and have any queries answered.
Engineers from Birmingham City Council Highway’s Team are an integral part of the project team and will be present at the drop-in sessions to discuss the proposed car park designs and any potential traffic restrictions for surrounding roads.
- Session 1: Thursday 1st August, 12-2pm
- Session 2: Wednesday 7th August, 6-8pm
- Venue: Quaker Meeting House, Meeting House Lane, Northfield B31 2LD
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