Let Parking be Free Again

Starting college aged 16 is when you realise that you need to grow up a lot from your high school days. The two years, possibly more that you are there you know that they are big years which also include 2 important birthdays. One when you turn 18 and you no longer need to lie about your age, and the other being 17 where you get the ultimate freedom of officially and legally being allowed to start driving a car on the roads.

So you’re a full time student attending college 4 days a week, then on top of this, you spend a large amount of your time at home doing your assignments in order to get a good mark so that you can do well in your life after college. Not only this, but 9 times out of 10, as Sport and Public Service students, you have the commitment to your chosen sport(s) and are regularly attending training and practices so that you can succeed at what you do. After this tiresome week that you are having, you also have your parents nagging you about how you have to get a job so you can start doing things on your own. The rest of your free time is then spent on a minimum wage paying job that is going to take you forever to save up enough money to actually do something you want to (if you find the time in your busy schedule).

However, you finally do it, you’ve paid your way through your driving lessons, you pass your theory and then finally, you pass your practical test. After this you have the excitement and joy of going to buy your first car, after the long shifts at work, you have the money that enables you to get a decent car AND be able to afford the insurance so you can use it. This new present to yourself not only means that you can go wherever you want and do whatever you want. One of the perks is that you can now drive to college, so what once was a journey that took 45 minutes on a bus, if it actually turned up on time… or at all, and then proceeds to stop at every village until it reaches the town centre, is now only a 10 minute drive. Not only does it mean that you no longer have to sit on a freezing cold bus, where no matter how many free seats there is, there is always that one person that sits right at the side of you and invades your personal space. It also means that you can have the much desired lie in, meaning you’re less tired for the day ahead and will be able to concentrate a lot more in your classes. All these perks just because you can drive!  

You turn up at college one day, like you have done every day since being able to drive; you complete your normal routine and go up the drive at college, knowing you have the privilege of the short walk from the carpark to the building, knowing that YOU are the reason that you can now do this. Only to get to the car park to find you cannot enter it without paying £2 a day! If it was a one off occasion and you were spending the day somewhere then it not an issue, but EVERYDAY when you have worked so hard to be able to drive, is an expense that you cannot afford especially when it has been free for so many years. You park your beloved car on the roads by college, praying that nobody is going to hit it with their own careless driving. You’ve tried parking in 3 spaces and had to move due to residents aggressively banging on their windows telling you to move as they don’t want students cars parked near their homes; you finally find a space and your 10 minutes late to your lesson. You angrily march up to college ready to have it out with a member off staff about how you can longer park there to find out that they have to pay too! Understandably, if the college didn’t provide spaces for staff then they would have to find somewhere else to park, but when they do have a carpark and also have to pay, when they are going there to work and help the students that attend it is ridiculous. The staff have to bring their equipment and apparatus to college in order to support the students learning, the need it to be easily accessible, NOT a mile walk away from their place of work. At the end of the day everyone makes the journey back to their cars only to find that they have a parking ticket without understanding what is wrong with their parking that has made them get one.

The money spent on installing the barriers would have been better spent somewhere else as they are not going to bring back what was spent on installing them, why should students and staff have to pay for something that has previously been free for so long. Not only did it anger many students, because of what they have put in to be able to drive, they now have the worry as to if where they have parked their car, is it safe? Is it going to be damaged? Is there going to be a parking ticket? However, this is all forgotten about because it isn't viable to pay the parking fee and you’re young and are now able to drive yourself places so take the risk anyways.

The carpark barriers should be lifted to give members of BSA the well-deserved privilege of being allowed to park in the carparks again, nobody is willing to pay the fee and while it is in place nobody is gaining from it, not the college, not the students, not the staff and not the home owners.

LET THE PARKING ONCE AGAIN BE FREE FOR STUDENTS AND STAFF AND KEEP IT THAT WAY!