Town Hall View: Car park changes will benefit drivers

We’re always looking at ways we can improve our parking offer and work is currently under way to upgrade three council car parks with a new ticketless, barrier-controlled, system.

The changes are happening at the Sand Martin House multi-storey, Car Haven and Riverside car parks.

The new system at Sand Martin House is now live, whilst Car Haven and Riverside will start from September 16 and 30, respectively.

This means that entry and exit will be via an ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) linked barrier, allowing customers to pay for their parking at the end of their stay based on how long they have been in the car park.

The changes will be beneficial to customers who will now no longer have to guess how long they might be parking, nor risk being late back to their vehicle and getting a fine. They can stay as long as they want and pay only for the time they have stayed.

There will be some disruption in these car parks whilst the work is being carried out, but wherever possible the car parks will remain open with some areas closed off for the protection of contractors undertaking the works.

The ticketless barriers open as soon as a vehicle approaches and often a vehicle will not even need to come to a stop as there is no ticket to collect at entry. So, traffic should flow at almost the same speeds as it currently does.

All the payment terminals will accept coin cash (coins only with change given), card (chip and pin and contactless) and online payment (not via an app - you just scan a QR code or enter a website URL).

On a personal note, I used to visit Heathrow on a regular basis and really did find the ANPR system a great benefit and I am sure you will, too.

Our licensing team works tirelessly to ensure that bars and restaurants in Peterborough are safe, welcoming places and I’m pleased to say that the vast majority fall into this category.

However, when the team becomes aware of any licence breaches they look to take appropriate action and this was the case with Bar 42, based in Broadway, which had its Premises Licence revoked last week.

This decision was taken following a series of violent incidents there, which included a serious sexual assault on a woman in November last year and two instances of serious violence taking place last month, with the latest incident resulting in a man being hospitalised with a bleed on the brain.

Despite licensing officers from both the council and police advising the premises over many months, their concerns escalated. This led to our licensing subcommittee holding a licensing review hearing and deciding to revoke Bar 42’s licence, which was the correct outcome in my view.

I sincerely hope that this decision serves as a strong warning that there will be serious consequences for licenced premises whenever we become aware of serious incidents and licence breaches.

Doesn’t time fly when you are having fun? Believe it or not, next week sees the start of the new school year, something which will no doubt come as a relief to many parents across the city! In all seriousness, I would like to wish the best of luck to everyone returning to the classroom. Some pupils will be going to school for the first time and, as we reported earlier this year, the percentage of children offered their first choices for primary and secondary schools remains very high.

It’s always a time of great excitement and maybe a few nerves, but as we saw in the past few weeks with the impressive A Level and GCSE results, our schools generally offer excellent education and choices for our youngsters.

Our priority is helping to give our young people the best possible start in life and for them to enjoy living and studying in the city, whether it’s at primary school, secondary school, college or at our new university. There’s an old saying that school years are the best years of your life. Whilst that is

debatable, we are actively working to make sure that’s true.

We’ve had a fantastic summer of events in Peterborough, topped off with the recent Beer Festival attracting big crowds to the Embankment.

The summer season isn’t quite over yet and there’s still plenty going on including the Cathedral’s highly impressive ‘Monsters of the Sea’ exhibition, which runs until 1 September.

The popular Artisan market returns to Cathedral Square this Saturday, offering visitors the chance to buy unique handmade items. We’ll continue to plug upcoming events on the council’s social media accounts, so please keep an eye on them.