What do you think about parking charges in Wimbledon town centre?

A local resident recently contacted us to express his concern about the disparity in parking charges between those in Wimbledon Town Centre and those in Kingston.

His view was that car parks in Wimbledon seemed to charge a far higher minimum fee than their Kingston counterparts. It’s not the first time that we’ve picked up on a level of discontent with parking prices in Wimbledon with Centre Court and “The Fridge on the Bridge” regularly coming in for most criticism.

So we decided to get an official response from Wimbledon Town Centre management on the issue and happily managed to do so.

The first thing to understand is that the two main car parks in Wimbledon are both privately owned and each can set their prices as they wish (whilst clearly attempting to remain competitive within reason). Some of the larger car parks in Kingston town centre are run by the local council.

 However, whilst pointing out that at in general hourly rates at £1.40 per hour actually seems higher in Kingston, WTC management did concede that minimum charges are possibly higher here.

WTC Manager Tracy Francis says, “Centre Court’s car park is obviously primarily for Centre Court customers as well as for the wider use of all visitors to the town centre. 

“It is not a good situation if shoppers who want to come to Centre Court and spend some time shopping there...then cannot get a space because of all the 20 minute parkers who are nipping into M&S for a sandwich”

Apparently, Centre Court recently researched the issue. Tracy goes on, “[Centre Court] found...that the majority of their shoppers spent 2+ hours at the Centre and a much lesser number spent under that.  So to try and redress the balance and cater for their own majority, they amended their minimum stay [charges], but at the same time, mindful of the fact that there are alternative street spaces for short term parking and other car parks within the town centre that is better suited for shorter minimum stays.”

Sound reasonable enough – or is there more to it than that? We’d love to hear your views!

Merton Council Car Parks:

http://www.merton.gov.uk/transport-streets/parking/carparks/wimbledoncps.htm