Blog: Charges will kill Wem

Exactly who is intended to benefit from proposed parking charges in Wem?

Based on the turnout at a meeting last night, Wem residents certainly don't think it's them.

Around 100 attended to hear the plans which would see charges in High Street, Leek Street and Mill Street.

What they said is a now familiar cry. Parking charges, they said, will kill the town.

People will stop coming and shops will be hit. As many motorists will know, Wem does already labour under inherent disadvantages, with its narrow streets and awkward junctions. Yes, you can find yourself in a traffic jam in Wem.

Yet treating motorists like an enemy is a risky business. Motorists are not enemies, but friends to places like Wem – they are generally the locals themselves, or people from surrounding hamlets and villages who pop in to Wem to shop and do business of one sort or another.

The charges are among proposals set out in a draft parking strategy produced by Shropshire Council in July.

They smack of what might be termed "unitary thinking". But the small towns of Shropshire do not lend themselves easily to a one-size-fits-all approach.Shoppers in Shrewsbury don't begrudge reasonable parking charges, not that they have much choice.

In Wem? There is a choice. They can go elsewhere. So we are back to the fundamental question which has to be at the heart of the decision-making: What good will parking charges do for Wem?