I blogged recently about Arras Square which is in the heart of Ipswich and is named in memory of the 150,000 British soldiers who died near Arras in WW1. It has recently become a car and lorry park for much of the day. The borough Council said that it was ‘complicated’ but that they would get back when they had time.
On investigation it seems to be reasonably simple. The following people, who park here on a regular basis, should possibly review their decision. Either that or their employers should do so for them and in one case is the Borough Council!
Tourist Information Office
The tourist information office which is run by Ipswich Borough Council operates from the 15th Century St Stephen’s church which is to one side of the square. It turns out that the manager has been parking her car just by the front entrance to the centre for over a decade without a ticket or any special permit! I will ask the council if they might like to review this policy and ask their staff to park elsewhere, because there is no shortage of parking available at modest prices in the town. I will be emailing IBC about this very soon.
Old car outside older church
British Home stores
Both the manager and the regional manager for the Ipswich branch of BHS use the square as a convenient place to park. The manager is at the store nearly every day, the regional manager comes less often, but was there today. BHS claim to offer ‘Modern Living Made Easy’, well life is certainly simple for their management. Tom, who is one of their managers at the store explained how it worked and said he understood my position. Isn’t to great to see how the perks mount up. Most staff can’t afford fancy cars and even have to ‘walk’ to the store, imagine that! The manager can afford a small fast car and can park right outside the door and the regional manager not only gets a bigger shiny car but also gets to park it in a setting just like in the advertisements! Needless to say I will be emailing BHS and will let you know what happens.
The manager’s car
The regional manager’s car
An independent clothes shop
Merc, is a smaller clothes retailer with four outlets in the UK. The local manager said that he would stop parking in the square if everyone else stops and that he would much prefer the square to be available for a market or something. Of course today his car was one of the only ones in the square for much of the time! Again I will be emailing the company to see if we can make his vision into a reality!
Car belonging to the manager of Merc (a clothes shop)
Deliveries
It turns out that the main shopping street only allows deliveries during restricted hours, however big vans and trucks can use this square at any time. As so when ‘Memorable Cheeses’ need an urgent delivery of chocolate as they did today then the big van parks here and heads into the main pedestrian area. I have to say that Memorable Cheeses are very memorable and we have bought a lot of cheese from them over the years and judging by the size of the van they must now have a huge supply of chocolate! There seems to be some interest locally in restricting the hours of delivery in this square and there is certainly significant disruption caused by these large vehicles will appear every 10 mins or so.
dp express ‘versatile logistics’ delivering urgent supplies of chocolate!
A memorable cheese shop!
TNT delivering to DHS
Selling cars
And it gets worse. As well as littering the square outside the Buttermarket these little blighters even turn up inside! Here are a couple of charming little cars on display inside.
Buy a new car today!
But don’t worry, the company does support ‘Motability’!
Supporting motability
Cycle parking
It is good to know however that the Borough also provides high quality modern secure storage for bicycles. Not sure what happened to their plans to upgrade these where the local cycle group were consulted on the matter a few years ago, but hey ho, we can’t have everything.
High quality modern facilities for bicycles!
Needless to say I will be writing to the Borough Council and to BHS and will keep people posted on what happens.
Pedestrian Liberation 
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