Mayor George Ferguson this afternoon extended the deadline to introduce controversial residents’ parking schemes across the city following harsh criticism from small businesses.
He said the extension allowed for additional time to publish a range of improvements to the plans “following representations from residents and businesses alike”. 
The announcement comes after Bristol small business owners clashed with him at a stormy meeting on Wednesday to discuss his plans to introduce resident parking zones (RPZs), with many telling him their trade would suffer.
More than 250 businesses attended the highly-charged meeting to discuss the impact of the schemes. Some traders heckled Mr Ferguson as he defended his plan to bring in 18 RPZs across the city within 18 months.
The Mayor said the short delay would also allow him to find time to meet and discuss the issues first with councillors through the scrutiny process.
In a statement, he said: “I have made it abundantly clear that I want to listen to residents and businesses and local councillors, and am prepared to adjust schemes to local conditions.
“As a result I have decided to postpone consideration of the report to cabinet and issue revised proposals for consideration in June instead. This will allow me an opportunity to discuss the principles and details with councillors in the scrutiny process before the report comes to Cabinet."
Traders at Wednesday’s meeting told him they would be hit by the schemes even though they believed the problem was caused by commuters not businesses.
The mayor had told the meeting, staged by Business West at City Hall, that he was “prepared to put up with the flak” as he believed the plan would benefit the city in the long run.
He made it very clear that he was elected to take ‘big decisions’ and that the big decision on residents’ parking had already been made.
The schemes would be implemented, he said, and he was only interested in hearing comments on the operation of the schemes from business owners.
One attendee at the meeting said: “It would be fair to say that most of the local businesses at the meeting were less than impressed with this approach or with grand statements about longer term vision and sustainable cities.
“They were concerned about the impact on their business now and how they would cope with extra costs and changes that impact on their ability to continue trading. They raised concerns about the lack of time to discuss the schemes, lack of contact with officers to discuss detail and the general feeling that this was the wrong solution to the congestion problem.
“Detailed concerns were raised around some fairly critical issues for business but most left the meeting without any real answers.”
Among the issues highlighted by businesses at the meeting were:
- A need for business permit that operates across all zones to cater for mobile workers such as builders, plumbers, electricians, photographers, service engineers.
- Allowances to be made for businesses that have different operating hours – such as bakers who have early morning starts – when public transport is not available?
- The impact on major visitor attractions like the zoo in terms of ability to attract visitors and staff, and for schools as staff tend to drive long distances to work.
- The expectation that businesses will be able to operate with a limit of two permits per business.
- The 15-minute waiting time near to businesses will not be sufficient to give customers enough time to shop before they are charged.
Business West managing director Phil Smith said RPZs were a “very blunt instrument” to solve the city’s parking problem, which was caused by commuters, not businesses. Yet businesses would be hit by their introduction.
“We are keen to better understand just what the mayor’s overall plan for transport in Bristol is, how it can work in isolation to the surrounding authorities and how all the different initiatives and projects we keep hearing about really fit together to solve the problem of congestion in our city region,” he said.
“Looking at residents’ parking schemes in isolation is difficult, but because of the rush to implement them, businesses are understandably keen to know more and to raise their concerns with the council.
“The people in the room were representing businesses that would be directly affected by the schemes. They operate in local neighbourhoods. They are not the ones creating the commuter parking problem but they are the ones that will have to pay more to continue to operate their businesses. If the problem is commuter parking then residents’ parking schemes that push the cost and disruption onto local people and local businesses are not the answer. This feels like a very blunt instrument to solve a problem, with too many unintended consequences for those who are not part of the problem.
“We would like to see the mayor and council slow this process down to give local businesses a proper opportunity to feed in their concerns and issues. Real solutions to those concerns need to be developed before schemes are introduced. It’s not good enough to say we can change things once schemes are in place, the damage might already have been done by then. We need to see solutions now.
“Businesses are not yet convinced that they will love the schemes once they are in place. They need to see that their concerns can be answered and I’m afraid that they will have left the meeting with very few answers and with most of their concerns reinforced rather than addressed.
“We will use the issues raised in this meeting, along with many other comments we have received over the last few weeks, to make very clear to the Mayor and Cllr Mark Bradshaw, what we believe needs to be in place before these schemes are implemented across such a large part of our city. We will work with them to develop solutions that work for business.
“The challenge to the mayor and Bristol council is to provide the evidence that commuter parking is a real problem in each of the areas identified and that residents’ parking schemes will really solve this problem without damaging local business. There’s a long way to go before many will be convinced.”
