Butcher blocks free car park with van claiming commuters ruin his trade
A fed up butcher has taken matters into his own hands to stop railway commuters filling up a free car park.
Mark Broadbent says it means shoppers are unable to park costing businesses trade over the past 12 months.
He says his concerns have fallen on deaf ears at the council forcing him to block off the entrance to the car park with his van every morning until about 8:30am.
Mr Broadbent, owner of Broadbent L&M butchers in Coseley, said: “I’ve heard people are travelling from as far away as Wombourne to park here to get the train to Wolverhampton because they haven’t got to pay.
“They’re filling the car park up by sort of quarter past, half past eight.
“The car parks are full and when people who are coming to do their shopping, there’s nowhere to park so I’ve been pulling my van across the car park until about quarter past, half past eight then moving it, and then we get a lot better trade that way because people park. It does work, if the car parks blocked I’ve done it on say a Tuesday, there’s a vast difference of customers you get coming in.
“The amount of people who come down here to do their shop and there’s nowhere to park so they went off to Sedgley or Dudley. It has had a huge impact.”
The trader, who has been at the shop for the last 27 years and owned it for the last three, called for action to be taken.
He said: “I’d like a minimum stay or something put on it, I’ve been speaking to the council on and off now for over 12 months. Nothing has beeen done to be honest.”
Councillor Karen Shakespeare, cabinet member for environmental services, said: “We are currently carrying out a strategic parking review which will look at the best options to deal with this and any other issues with parking across the borough.
"Clearly, this is a public car park and therefore anyone is legally free to park there, but we recognise the specific issues of this case and are working to resolve them as quickly as possible.
"We have already made a number of visits to the car park to look to see what action can be taken in the short term to ensure people use the spaces correctly.”
Another trader, Del Bunce of Equal Partners, a hairdressers in Bilston, said: “There’s more and more people using the railway but obviously they’re not doing anything to accommodate the car parking.
“The two car parks they have are ridiculous for the amount of people they have coming to the station.
“You phone the council and they just say its a public car park anyone can park here, but you have got people parking here for weeks at a time, two or three days at a time, just leaving their car overnight.”
