Update: Parking restrictions at the Fryern Arcade have been lifted. See No More Parking Restrictions at Fryern Arcade (19th July 2018)
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Original blog post:
If you visit the Fryern Arcade in Chandler’s Ford, you could park for 3 hours for free.
If you visit the Co-operative Food next to the Fryern Arcade and park at the Co-operative Food’s car park (entrance from Brownhill Road, next to the Age Concern Centre), you can now enjoy up to one hour’s free parking.
At the Brownhill Road entrance to the Co-operative Food, you’ll see a new sign about parking.
At the Co-operative Food’s car park, you’ll see a few warning signs about the new parking rules:
Attendant patrolled car park at the Co-operative Food (105-111 Winchester Road, Chandler’s Ford SO53 2GH)
Attendant patrolled car park
- 1 hour Free parking for customers of the Co-operative Food
- Maximum stay 1 hour – No overnight parking
- Car parking restrictions do not apply if you display a valid Blue Badge
£70 Parking Charge Notice will be issued in the following circumstances:
- Parking over 1 hour
- Overnight parking
- Parking in a disabled bay without displaying a valid blue badge
- Parked out of marked bay
- Obstructive parking
- Parking in a parent and child bay without a child under the age of 12
Parking at the Fryern Arcade in Chandler’s Ford
However if you drive past the Co-operative Food car park, you can park for 3 hours for free at the Fryern Arcade car park.
You can also park at the top car park of the Fryern Arcade for 3 hours.
The parking rules for the Fryern Arcade car park are:
Parking at the Fryern Arcade in Chandler’s Ford
Camera enforcement in operation
- Fryern Arcade customer parking only. Do not park & go elsewhere.
- Park within marked bays only.
- Maximus stay 3 hours – No return within 30 minutes.
- Blue Badge (BB) holders only in marked blue badge bays whilst fully displaying a valid BB in the windscreen area.
- All permit holders must have their vehicle pre-registered before using the car park.
If you enter or park on this land contravening the above terms & conditions, you are agreeing to pay: Parking Charge Notice (PCN) £100.
The displays of both sets of parking rules are close to each other.
In this picture, the sign on the left indicates the parking for the Fryern Arcade – 3 hours.
The sign on the right indicates the parking for the Co-operative Food – 1 hour.
Make sure you know where to park, and how to park, when you are in the Centre of Chandler’s Ford.
Update:
So if I park in Fryern Arcade, do some shopping, but also want to nip across the road to Lloyds Bank, or to return a library book, I would be liable to a £100 fine immediately. Presumably the same would apply if I parked in Fryern and also went to the Co-op for anything. The rules say I would have to move my car to the Co-op’s area. A time limit I can understand, but a “you may not walk out of this zone” rule beggars belief, and will cost what shops we have left, valuable revenue. Fryern’s loss will be Waitrose’s gain.
Chandlers Ford always used to be a friendly community, with only those restrictions a village would impose. Now the local shops have mostly gone, we’re a town with the national chain shops telling us how to live, how to park and how to move in our own shoopping area.
I was only thinking the other day how lucky we are with regard to the free parking available in Chandlers Ford.
It appears the two different companies monitoring the parking and imposing fines are private companies and not Eastleigh Borough Council. Are they out to make a fast buck at the expense of local people?
I was told by a member of the Co-operative shop staff that many of the cars parking in the car park behind the shop belong to people who work locally, and are therefore taking up space that could be used for shoppers. Is it because they don’t have anywhere else to park? Where will they park now these fines are going to be imposed on people who stay over an hour?
On the one hand, if people can’t find a parking space, they will go elsewhere. Hence some time restriction may be required to stop people leaving cars all day. On the other hand, if the restrictions are too restrictive, people won’t bother going there in the first place. To me, three hours is plenty long enough for a shopping etc. visit. One hour could be too short.
I agree with Ann. It’s all right stopping workers from hogging the parking spaces but they still need to park somewhere.
The two car parks pretty much merge into one at the back of the co op / arcade. If they are to have separate restrictions there needs to be a clearer demarcation as to which car park is which.
But I am reminded (as so often) of the lyrics in the Tom Petty song “The Last DJ”: “All the boys upstairs want to see how much you will pay for what you used to get for free.”
Which would be why I shop and park at Waitrose, walk across to the Arcade for anything I need there and NEVER go into the Co-op. I don’t see why I should pay to use the car park when I am spending money in the shops. We had this problem when it was Sainsbury’s and an elderly pensioner was heavily fined for coming back and getting a missing ingredient (within the “No Return” time for the shop) and the whole thing ended up in The Echo with everyone saying how bad it was.
I shop at the Co-op. I expect to find a parking space intended for customer use. It is not a car park for Brownhill Surgery or for Costa Coffee or for the Library or for Lloyds Bank or for Santander or for the local school. I’ve probably missed a few others. Abuse leads to regulation.
David,
Yes many people have used Co-op for Brownhill Surgery (as the parking at the surgery is almost impossible). I’m one of them, but I have the courtesy of shopping at Co-op afterwards – I even have a loyalty card to prove it!
The Co-op car park is also conveniently used by many people attending the Age Concern events, and parents who pick up their children from Merdon Junior School.
Residents choose to park at the Co-op car park because parking at Brownhill Surgery, Brownhill Road and Merdon Avenue are restricted. Sometimes it could be that the Methodist Church car park is full and people need to park somewhere.
I often see the blue One Community minibus at the Co-op car park, as it is a convenient location for them to support the elderly who visit the Age Concern Centre. I hope the valuable service from One Community minibus is not affected.
Chandler’s Ford is facing a parking dilemma. I hope Chandler’s Ford Parish Council or Eastleigh Borough Council would come up with some good suggestions in their long term planning for Chandler’s Ford.
I found this rule at the Co-op’s car park the most refreshing:
You would be fined if you are:
“Parking in a parent and child bay without a child under the age of 12.”
I would have thought by the age of 12, you would have been able to walk quite steadily, without having to sit on a car seat. This sign implies that if you have a Yr 8 pupil in a secondary school, you are actually allowed to park at the Parent and Child bay.
What a jangly dirge that music is. Drummer sounds like a tired carpenter knocking in the last few nails of the week.
As the car park appears to be all one space, it should have one set of regulations. Where does the Co-op manager park?
Who owns (or leases) the land? If it is the Co-op, then surely they have the right to ensure that their customers are able to park there. A bit further along the road the notice outside the Nat West bank clearly states that the car park is for customer use only – and no one seems to have a problem with that. Maybe because the Nat West car park is clearly delimited, and clearly part of the land on which the bank stands. The problem with the Co-op car park is that it is not as clearly part of the Co-op’s land, hence the assumption that it is free-for-all.
My understanding is that the Co-op and the Fryern Arcade are managed separately. Ruby – you are right that many people presume that the whole area (Arcade, Co-op) is one “free” parking space that people think they have the right to park there for a few hours.
It’s common that people park in one place (sucha as Fryern Arcade) and do many tasks in the area (library, banks, local schools). It’s similar to people who park at the Chandler’s Ford Library car park. Sometimes I can’t find a space at the library car park, and have to park at Waitrose.
While many people lament the high parking fees in Eastleigh, at least we still have a few ‘free’ parking places. Chandler’s Ford Train station is one of them. At Swan Centre in Eastleigh, you have to park to shop there, if the very limited “free” parking spaces along the neighbourhood area have been occupied.
I only hope that people do not misuse the free services or facility in the local area. I would be the most upset if Chandler’s Ford train station car park starts charging one day.
Janet,
Thank you for pointing this out.
Such a shame that they are all so blinkered and do not think of us as one community who use some or all of the shops and facilities at some time or another.
I shop and park at Waitrose most of the time but do not consider I am doing anything immoral if I pop over to the library at the same time.
A fine case of traffic chaos if I move over to the library car park then across to the arcade to go into the hardware shop and then move round to the Co-op if I want to look for something I could not find in Waitrose. Where should I go then if I need to get to the doctors in time for my appointment?
I do my best to support all local shops and businesses so I would say it is a case of swings and roundabouts.
Apparently, you are now allowed a ten-minute grace period at the end of the parking period. This is a law that came in for private car parks on 1 October (it has applied to council car parks for a few months longer).
The three new motoring laws that you need to know about – Car Keys
Why 10 minutes? Not 8 minutes, not 15 minutes? The point of setting a rule is for it to work, and for people to stick to the hours that they are allowed to park. By having this ‘flexibility’ it may complicate the matter, and may lead to more arguments.
I think the idea of the 10-minute grace period is to allow for checkout queues to be slower than expected, or children needing the loo, etc. A 10-minute overstay could be seen as accidental, as due to things beyond your control. Beyond that it belongs to look like an intentional attempt to underpay.
There’s probably some statistics behind it – some bell-shaped curve that proves that most people who overstay parking overstay by fewer than ten minutes.
Can anyone tell us if this ridiculous rule about not leaving Fryern Arcade when parking there really will be enforced? I echo the previous comments about parking in one place in the town but carrying out multiple tasks e.g. shopping in Fryern Arcade but also going to the bank or library. In the end all the businesses in the area benefit. If the tenants in Fryern Arcade have agreed to this (it may have been imposed) then they do not deserve my business. It is hard enough for small independent town centres to survive without this shot in their own foot. They may charge in Eastleigh but at least it is somehow more honest.
Hi Richard,
As you could see from the rules that the car park owner doesn’t like us to park there and then go elsewhere.
However these rules are impractical for the local.
In Chandler’s Ford centre, it is natural that we park in a place, and visit a few places around the parking area, as long as we don’t abuse the system (and people don’t normally). The Arcade is convenient for us to park and shop and do a few other things. Where could people park when they want to visit their doctors at Brownhill Surgery? Or visit Age Concern Centre? Fryern Arcade is the right place. People still visit the shops there to support local businesses.
When I park at Fryern Arcade, I always support the local shops, and charity shops, so I don’t feel guilty of going elsewhere (such as Wessex charity shop and the library across the road) for a short while.
Is anyone aware if the Fryern Arcade management (I have no idea who they are) have given a reason for this decision? If I ran a shop there I would not be very happy. If anyone reading this runs a shop in the arcade then I would be interested in their thoughts. I have no problem whatsoever with the time limit, only the risk of a fine for daring to cross the road to the bank.
And even if your allotted “time” extends into the late evening (when the car park is empty) you still get fined. Community spirit? No, rampant commercialisation which The Co-op and may other chains have fallen for.
Note: the 3 hour restriction applies 24 hours a day.