A £250,000 electronic sign scheme to help drivers in Keswick see which car parks are full or have available spaces has been “kicked into long grass”.
Keswick Labour councillors Markus Campbell-Savours and Tony Lywood claim the authorities have gone cold on the idea and instead cheaper, traditional signs will be brought in, with Cllr Campbell-Savours blaming “inertia” at Allerdale Borough Council, and the latter branding it a “disgrace”.
Innovative digital signage had been one of the improvement measures identified for Keswick to help those motorists repeatedly circulating car parks, and then dumping their vehicles on residential streets when they could not get a space.
It was an expensive marquee scheme contained in a package of solutions drawn-up for Keswick.
It followed an extensive transport study aimed at finding answers to combat some of the town’s long-standing traffic and parking problem.
The study was jointly funded by a number of agencies including Cumbria County Council, Allerdale Borough Council, the Lake District National Park Authority and Keswick Town Council.
Digital signage was aimed at preventing “poor way-finding” around Keswick, and a “lack of signage to direct visitors to available car parks.”
Councillors believe the reason for dropping the project includes “bad experiences” of the technology elsewhere, with concerns that it did not always provide drivers with “real time” updates of available spaces.
Instead, Keswick now looks set to get a “simpler and cheaper” non-technology based option.
Cllr Tony Lywood said the decision amounted to “reneging” on the deal.
Cllr Lywood said: “At the same time as the county council are moving forward with certain implementations of the transport study, Allerdale appear to be trying to find any excuse to renege on their commitment to put up digital signs in different car parks.”
Cllr Campbell-Savours said: “The digital option was probably going to be a little bit too ambitious and a bit of a pipedream.”
He believes Allerdale was unlikely to be keen on signposting motorists to other car parks if there was a risk of losing income from its own.
Cllr Campbell-Savours said it was no good having parking solutions arranged for the back streets if motorists were then directed to the main streets where car parks were not functioning efficiently as all it would do was generated more traffic circulating.
Councillors said the reason for going cold on the project included “bad experiences” of the technology elsewhere, with concerns that it could not always provide drivers with “real time” updates.
Cllr Campbell Savours said: “A similar scheme in Carlisle was abandoned and now a ‘simpler’ non-technology based option looks set to be explored with the aim of improving general car parking signage throughout Keswick.
“At the same time they have closed the pool to save £250,000 and at the very same time they are trying to flog off an asset they own to the Keswick Hotel for, so I am led to believe, around £500,000, which is the Station platform building, plus car parking plus the road that leads to the Keswick Hotel and the car parking in front.
“For me it seems an absolute disgrace and the kind of normal behaviour from Allerdale Borough Council that we have come to expect.”
Cllr Campbell-Savours said local politicians needed to be “in the room” when the plug was being pulled on projects.
He said the progress by Allerdale Borough Council on transport solutions for Keswick had been “underwhelming,” although the county council had been doing some very good work.
