The title of this article is a summary of the comment made by opposition councillor, Francisco Prados (PSOE): “If we don’t make it easy for people to park, they’ll stop coming here.”
With the summer just around the corner, the habitual parking problems are lurking, thanks to the parking layout of the town. In the last few years 2,984 former free parking spaces have been turned into Blue Zone, pay parking, and a good many of them along the beach roads. The town now has three underground car parks, but literally hundreds of surface parking spaces were lost to build them.
For the above reasons, and because the average visitor is financially hard-hit just like everybody else, Councillor Prados feels that the Town Council should drop the parking prices for both the Blue Zones, as well as the underground parking facilities. Salobreña, he reasons, is increasingly attractive by comparison, precisely because of its free parking and an abundance of it.
Sr. Prados considers that despite the reduction made in the active hours of Blue-Zone parking last summer, the said controversial system is going to cause more problems this coming summer.
“It is calculated that 33% don’t obtain a ticket, so it is the fines, rather than the ticket system, that brings in the money,” he explained. “For this very reason, in the light of these difficult economic times, this barely disguised fining system as a form of income must be changed.” This change, he suggests, would be making the first two hours of parking time free. He went on to suggest that low-cost parking should be opened up on vacant land near the beaches, as well as the urban centres of Almuñécar and La Herradura.
“The summer is getting closer and closer and with it the arrival of thousands of tourists. Parking is one of the main concerns for these visitors, so having cheap and available parking is fundamental, if we want our bars, hotels and restaurants to be full,” he said.
His idea is to create Orange Parking areas on vacant land that would charge only 1.5 euros a day, which would do away with the overwhelming of parking facilities on beaches such as Velilla.
He is especially concerned over La Herradura, which he said is completely under Blue Zones, whilst the two underground car-parking facilities are unfinished and inoperative.
And all this is basically what the Seaside Gazette has been saying for the last two years, you might have noticed.
(News: Almunecar, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)