Obstacles to Tourism in Llandudno

[Fester]

Please tell me that we are not expecting visitors to make there way into the resort of Llandudno after being dropped off at Builder Street?

Its bad enough the coach park being at the 'wrong end' of town as it is.  Am I missing something?

Visitors need to be dropped off on either Gloddaeth St, North Parade or The Promenade, and this must be clearly understood.

Jim Jones at CCBC, your job is Tourism, are you listening to this?

[Bri Roberts]

Mostyn Broadway Coach Park is 100 yards from the promenade one way and 150 yards from Mostyn Street in another so I cannot see any problem with its current location.

Can you imagine the chaos and safety issues with twenty or thirty coaches all picking up 1000+ elderly passengers between 4pm – 5.30pm at any of the locations suggested by Fester?

However, I believe the current opening hours of toilet facilities and the tourist information at the current site could be much improved.

Yorkie will soon tell me if I am wrong but the procedure for coach drivers seems to be to drop-off their day trippers in the coach park on Mostyn Broadway in the morning and then move away to park their coaches in Builder Street until later in the day when they return to the coach park to collect their passengers before making their way home.

The reason for this I guess is to make way for other coaches to arrive in the coach park to drop-off.

The problem is there never seems to enough coaches on a daily basis these days to fill up the coach park so coaches often stay in the coach park all day.

Even over the weekend of the Extravaganza we noticed the coach park was not completely full.

Perhaps, it is time for the relevant department of CCBC to review the present rule with a trial run of all-day parking in Mostyn Broadway Coach Park and perhaps we will even stop seeing coaches parked all over Llandudno and C-y-D with drivers trying to avoid paying something like £10 to park or having to park up in Builder Street and walk back into Llandudno.

Some observers might suggest CCBC should be making it easier for proprietors of private coach companies to organise day trips to Llandudno by giving them free parking for a maximum of eight hours in the coach park and a complimentary ticket for a meal in Café Cais !!!

As regards to the feedback from pumpkin, I have to add low branches have never caught my eye on the walk from bog island to the coach park. I am also not convinced building a brand new coach park alongside the railway station would prove a good use of public funds in the present economic climate and I am not convinced it would be much nearer to town anyway.





 

[Yorkie]

Very quick reply from me.  The Town gets too many coaches to allow parking them all at Mostyn Broadway.  On Bank Holidays we can get up to 120 or more coaches in town and even on an average day the actual number who arrive is not known until they turn up.

The present system has been operating for 20 years and has never had any problems.

I cannot understand the purge by the Attendant unless it was due to the Coach Drivers trying to "beat the system", and to get them back on track.  One will notice that a few Drivers will park anywhere to avoid paying for the days parking! 

[norman08]

pumpkin this once queen of the welsh resorts , the way the shower that run this town are going we wont have any visitors ,this gestapo lot waiting to punce on locals and visitors [didn,t go to charm school]fester has got an idea ,they could tinker with that one .brian i walk up builder st often the over hang branches are by bathers and the way some drivers speed up there ,when you get to the coach pk notice cccbc except NO resposability for parking in there ,no facilitys there and the walk back into town ,[if pouring down well ]i remember they used to manage the coaches before the coach park on builder st was there and we had a lot more coaches then ,bor and bred but peed off what they are doing ,get a grip before its too late

[DaveR]

It's rare to see the Coach Park anything approaching even half full when you go past on a Summer afternoon. I see no reason why many more coaches cant be permitted to stay there instead of being shunted off to Builder St. The clue is in the name - Coach Park. 

As regards coaches dropping off/picking up in town, we have many coaches already doing that every day on the Prom outside hotels and it seems to work ok.

Each full coach is the equivalent of many hundreds of pounds in extra takings for the town's traders. We should be doing our utmost to attract more coaches to the town, not put them off by sky high parking fees and making things difficult for them. Or is that a bit too much like common sense?

[Fester]

Bri, not for the first time recently you disagree with me, and thats fine... but looking at your post in detail you actually DO agree with me because you have used the key words, 'Elderly people'

The current coach park is too far from any Llandudno attraction for 'the elderly'

I speak to them all day long, they are here in town for 5 hours maximum and they spend almost all of it struggling to walk the distance from the coach park and back again.
They can never take a trip on the Tram or the Cable Car.  It's just a poor experience for them.

I constantly hear people saying, 'oh its taken us 2 hours to get to the pier'
Or,  'why can't they drop us off closer to the best part of town'?

The VAST majority of coach travellers are Elderly.  They have given up driving now and are not too good at walking.
But for some reason we force THAT group of people to walk further than everyone else!

[pumpkin]

Thanks to those who replied to my post. Rang the councils parking office this morning, the lady who answered was polite and tried to help, but has asked the manager to ring me back re what  we do when Builder Street full. To the person who thinks the footpath from the coach park to the town is ok, try taking a walk there again. Once again please bring back the original attendant and apply some common sense, its easier to be helpful than to be a pain.

[Ian]

I have to agree. It occurs there are two possible solutions: Adapt Gloddaeth to make it possible to drop off and later collect coach guests or - secondly - create a transport system into the town from wherever coaches can drop off. But that would need investment...

[hollins]

I agree with Fester and he is the one who is getting the first hand feedback from the visitors.
The other thing about parking that far away is that visitors are discouraged not to buy anything in the shops because they cannot manage to carry it back to their coach.
When I can't find a place to park in town I park near Debenhams and carry my shopping back to the car and I am always very glad when I get there as my arms are dropping off by then.
I know visitors are not going to be buying groceries but just a few things from the Pound shop, a book from Smiths and a drink and a sandwich for the trip back would be difficult enough for some.
My dad used to struggle to manage the walk from the Imperial to the pier.

[Nemesis]

Many of the elderly people who come by coach have to use taxis to get to this end of town, they just can't walk with luggage, so a drop off could be sensible, trouble is people aren't sensible, if a coach is willing to stop somewhere other than a designated stop it becomes a free for all with "just drop me here" or "just drop me there".
As for coaches parking overnight, they seem to be here, there and everywhere, a popular place, especially for foreign registered ones, is along the centre of Gloddaeth Street, longways on the car park.

[Bri Roberts]

Fester, by me using two words such as ‘Elderly People’, I fail to comprehend how I actually agree with you with your proposed relocation of the current Coach Park.

Do you know most of the elderly people I see on the pier are far more agile than me?

Perhaps, they are regular customers of yours.

Seriously, Llandudno has a Land Train route from the Pier Gates down to West Shore and back again.

I believe another route from the Coach Park to the Pier Gates for a couple of hours in the morning and from the Pier Gates to the Coach Park for another couple of hours in the afternoon would soon solve your problem especially if it was sponsored by the Pier Company.

From memory, my previous disagreement with you was over your complaint that last weekend’s Triathlon was going to be an ‘obstacle to tourism’.

Was it?

[wrex]

 >>>Bri the footpath Pumpkin is talking about is the one down Builders st,as for the coach park today it is full of LLandrillo minibuses.What a disgrace if a parking attendant is booking coaches parked on a coach park,its not their fault CCBC have nobody there to look after them and will these coaches return now they have been fined,i bet there is no charge to park in Eirias park.

[Bri Roberts]

Thanks, wrex. That was ambiguous in pumkin’s post.

I would be interested to know if any councillors have walked from the coach park into the town, the footpath is covered by low branches in many places,

And you are correct about the other matter.

When I passed earlier there was a cluster of nine vehicles comprising mini-buses, people carriers and one private car.

I did notice a female enforcement officer booking a visiting coach

FYI, there is a Disability Swimming Gala on this morning in Llandudno Swimming Centre so I am guessing all those other vehicles will be displaying blue disabled badges.

However, the sign at the entrance on Mostyn Broadway clearly states COACHES ONLY so something obviously needs to be done quickly to resolve this issue.

[Yorkie]

Point one:  Llandudno was never build to accept tourists and day trippers travelling by coach, and like many other aspects of the infrastructure cannot cope with the sheer volume.  The streets of the town and the parking facilities are stretched beyond their capability and can give no further, for either cars or coaches.

Consequently about 20 years ago a system was introduced for the coaching traffic to make the best use of the facilities available.  Coaches delivering to hotels were allowed to drop their passengers at the hotel and to assist in this matter even special parking bays were later introduced.  Day visitors had to disembark their coaches at Mostyn Broadway.   For any period of parking by either type of coach they had to use the purpose built Builder Street Coach Park.  A facility was put there for the drivers to dump the coaches toilet which saved them a trip to Llandudno Junction.  The short walk back to Town did not seem to bother most of them.

Apart from the attendant at Builder Street there was also an Attendant at Mostyn Broadway to give help and advice.  The Parking Fees are on a Pay and Display basis and the Policing, to ensure compliance with the system, is in the hands of the Parking Department.

If the Drivers followed the system, there would be no hassle, and no Fixed Penalties.

The Local Parking Orders prohibit coach parking anywhere in the Town, but to save the parking charge many drivers will chance their arm.   In all cases, I suspect that their employers would refund any Parking Charges they have to pay.

Use, rather than abuse the system and all will be well.

[Michael]

   Right at the end of all these posts about coach parking. How did I miss it? My biggest hobby horse.
   However, surprised to see that no one mentions the "heritage", open topped double decker.
   As no one has mentioned it I presume that noone knows about it. So I will give you a very brief summary.
   Last year the pier owners were concerned by the number of potential customers who stated that quote "its too far for us to walk from the coach park to the pier."
  So, the pier contacted Alpine the local coach operator. Can you help? So Alpine spruced up an open top and gave it a vintage paint job and off you go. A shuttle service, coach park to pier and return.
  Obviously this cost money, and someone somewhere was going to have to pay. So, a charge was made for riding on it.
  Don't see any sign of it this year. Don't think I need to tell you why.  Mike