Decay and delay at Moorfield deliberate?

We dash into the Christmas season and hope for the economic best for Truro, for trade to keep all those shops open and tills ringing, as the secretaries, clerks and receptionists plan their lunchtime forays into town for lunch to gather everything they need to navigate the great feasts, the expectant children and grandchildren, and to see out one year and greet the next.

Truronians with an ever-watchful and attentive eye look behind Malletts to see the Moorfield Car Park, mostly shut, earning nothing, slowly crumbling away, and leaving those professionals who generate the work in their offices to keep their employees going down town in their lunch hour to the shops they need to be open and bright, and happy to serve with nowhere in the town centre to park.

The Moorfield car park is one of the engines of Truro’s town centre, and we are suffering the consequences of whatever it is we are told makes it’s a risk. But what is it, precisely? And what is to be done about it?

Apparently, its closed for ‘tests’, they say, to find out if cracks are serious or not? This is important because an electric vehicle (EV) is much heavier than internal combustion cars – the concern is whether the structure can take the extra pressure. But, how are they testing? It appears to be by theoretical means, rather than by doing what one surveyor has suggested: Filling up a number of containers with water and seeing what happens! Apparently, this is quite a serious sort of test, and is used by professional in structures like multi-storey car parks!

Is the problem being over-stated in order o create a reason for demolishing the structure, un-impeding the site, and fulfilling Cornwall Council’s constant desire to find ways of generating capital receipts to spend on ‘projects’; Current furore over the sale of land and buildings from the Cornwall Farms Estate being a case in point!

So, here’s two questions:

1. Are there simpler quicker ways to test if the Moorefield car park can cope with future vehicles?
2. If demolished, would CC retain the vital parking function, which serves both the shopping centre and business district (a district which, in recent times has expanded along Charles Street)?

We cannot go on like this. There is, apparently, some consultation going on to introduce charging at the park and rides (in addition, I understand, to buying a bus ticket)! How, if introduced (and it seems the machines are being installed!) would the affect the town centre?

Well, those busy professional estate agents and surveyors would not use thepark and ride because time is money, and each way, it’s a half hour at least to get from town to the P&R site. For shoppers, clients, visitors and workers, it reduces the desirability of buying lots of stuff, or bigger things, because the huff and puff is all too much.

Who do the park & ride buses really serve? Truro College, to some extent, and the hospital to a large extent! . I once followed an old and late friend out of the Trelawny Wing to the car park at Treliske after he had spent several long hours sitting with his dying wife. On arriving at the car park machine he discovered that he was being charged a small fortune To save his distress I paid for him and he drove sadly away to pass away soon after. I wondered then, as I do now, how much distress the charges at Treliske cause, for what return? And I understand why the P&R sites are chock-a-block with hospital  staff, out-patients, visitors et al.

But this was not the ‘business plan’ on which the park and ride was implemented, and the impact on trade in the town centre. We need town centre car parks if, as people use cars and seem likely to continue doing so for the foreseeable future, we are to have a town, and not some sort of heritage husk of beautiful but under-utilised and dull buildings and streets.

Cornwall Council needs to sort this out. Parking is not a cash-cow to keep everything else going (especially demand-led services). It is an essential service in commercial centres to ensure that the transactions upon which commerce relies can be undertaken as quickly, effectively and profitably as possible. Its not easy squaring the Council budget – indeed, it may be impossible! But eroding the economic strength of successful towns, is no way to sustainably generate revenue, especially, when many of the grants upon which, as well as Council Tax, the Council relies, derives from tax raised as Business Rates.

So, I repeat! Cornwall Council needs to sort this out.

Its no good having free parking after 4pm if you haven’t got any car parks! The evening economy relies upon its patrons earning money somewhere doing something during the daytime (mostly!).

One last time! Cornwall Council must urgently sort out Moorfield Car Park.

BB