Red Car Park Stewarding

[North Somerset Royal]

In view of the long delays in exiting the Red car park and not wishing to leave before the final whistle I have always tried to arrive early in order to secure a space near the exit. However on Saturday myself and other early arrivals were forced by the stewards to park at the furthest point from the exit with the result that it took me over half an hour to get to the exit and 45 minutes to get on the A33. Given the amount that they charge for parking and that you are not given a designated space I think it is a damned cheek for stewards to force you to park at the most inconvenient part of the car park. Does anyone know why this change in the arrangements has occurred?

[Red]

Leave me out of this

[Gordons Cumming]

Ask the club.

Make a complaint.

[Rex]

You should have ignored them and parked in the more popular spaces. No doubt filling parking spaces in a controlled back to front manner saves on their legs and also the potential chaos of people driving around impatiently looking for a space.

[Jerry St Clair]

I recommend leaving the game 15 minutes early to solve this problem

[weybridgewanderer]

i recommend not paying loads of money for a car park ticket and using the bus instead

[TFF]

I always ignore their futile arm waving and park just where I want.

[Croydon Royal]

i recommend not paying loads of money for a car park ticket and using the bus instead

Return adult bus fare from Caversham to the Madejski Stadium - £5.00 each. 23 home league matches plus a couple of cup games for me and the missus: 25 x £10 = £250

Car park pass = £130 (I think)

I'm all for getting the bus to football, I think it's part of the matchday experience and when I moved to Reading (before I knew the cost) I was looking forward to doing it.

But £120 difference, plus more flexibility in terms of when you leave for the match, plus the fact some evening matches means you drive directly from work, plus you can listen to the post match reports in the warmth of a car, then getting a car park pass was a no brainer. Seriously, £5 for a return bus journey from the centre of Caversham to the Madejski is scandalous.

[TFF]

You need to factor in fuel prices for an accurate comparison.

Anyway, three adults and three children in our car share means the car park pass represents a huge saving over bus fares. Cup game parking thrown in foc helps as well!

[Fox Talbot]

I always ignore their futile arm waving and park just where I want.

Likewise.

a) if you arrive late they don't guarantee you can get in the car park anyway - which was originally a main benefit.

b) now if you arrive early they want to penalise you by making get out later too!

What's a rational man (with a red car park pass, that is) to do?

[weybridgewanderer]

the original poster complained about the amount of time in the car park "given the amount they charge" so I said he should use the bus

others then say the bus is too expensive, but they are not the ones complaining about the length of time leaving the car park

if the car park is too slow for your, use the bus

if the bus is too expensive, use the car park

if that is too expensive and too slow, walk

but don't moan about a choice you made knowing the risk/costs etc

[Red]

I do think in life generally it's a car drivers prerogative to moan about traffic/parking whilst expecting to be able to drive everywhere they want without hindrance.

[North Somerset Royal]

Ask the club.

Make a complaint.

I did as you suggested and here is the response

Thank you for your email. We have made an attempt to make parking more efficient by having the stewards direct the parking rather than have drivers parking in several different parts of the car park at the same time. The problems are that as the lines on the gravel surface have been lost and with drivers parking without direction, we get a variety of issues:

· Triple rows of parking with cars boxed in,

· Difficult to find odd spaces all over the car park when it is nearly full which means drivers, stewards and the CCTV operator are searching for odd spaces over the car park.

· Drivers also leave larger than necessary gaps between cars.

· People have different requirements, some wish to be closer to the stadium, some wish to be closer to the exits and this makes it more difficult to manage the spaces.

· If the car parking is inefficient than there can be problems with the capacity.



Ideally the car parks would be hard surfaced and fully lined, and we are seeking the finances to get this work carried out. This idea is a trial and we would like to thank you for your feedback.



Kind regards

[Gordons Cumming]

There.

Makes pretty good sense doesn't it?

[North Somerset Royal]

Yes all laudible aims but the fact is that they could achieve all of them and still start with the rows near the exit which is what they did up until the Coventry game. Surely they should encourage early arrivals who will tend to spend more on site and discourage lots of people arriving at the last minute. Also when I arrived there were already some cars parked in the spaces nearest the exit and it was particularly galling to see that these belonged to stadium employees who appear to be exempt from this new scheme.

[Royal Lady]

Pay £7 and park somewhere else whilst also giving money to cancer research. It's a no brainer!

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Ideally the car parks would be hard surfaced and fully lined,

Would this be the tarmaced car parks that were in the proposals for the Stadium prior to being built??? Much like the roof extension that was shelved, so folk get wet. Anyone that does not believe that these were proposed I have the original handouts from the time still. Thye also suggest free parking, and clearing the car park in short time due to the road designs employed!!

[Svlad Cjelli]

Ideally the car parks would be hard surfaced and fully lined,

Would this be the tarmaced car parks that were in the proposals for the Stadium prior to being built??? Much like the roof extension that was shelved, so folk get wet. Anyone that does not believe that these were proposed I have the original handouts from the time still. Thye also suggest free parking, and clearing the car park in short time due to the road designs employed!!

And the crèche, and the alignment of the stadium so that no-one would ever get the sun in their eyes. Still they half achieved on that last one - no-one *important* gets the sun in their eyes.

[Avon Royal]

i recommend not paying loads of money for a car park ticket and using the bus instead

Yeah, that bus service from North Somerset is awesome.

[Royal Lady]

Don't start me on about the creche. I even wrote to JM with some ideas and said I'd be willing to help out with setting up etc, if necessary - got a one line reply saying the creche was no longer going ahead.