Red Car Park Renewal - or not?

[Fox Talbot]

Renewal notice come through for 2013/14 - £180.

I'm thinking of jacking it. Anyone out there jacked it in previously and regretted it?

[Wycombe Royal]

Uner £8 per league match, not that bad, but more than the free parking I use.

[Croydon Royal]

Jacked it in when I moved from Croydon to Reading, thinking I'd get public transport instead. Then worked out that getting the bus from Caversham for 2 of us is more expensive than the actual car park pass, and obviously gives you less flexibility in terms of when you want to leave to get to the ground and from leaving the Madejski. The missus works all around the south east and would frequently need to go directly to the ground from work on a Tuesday night game, so with that and having a lot of Saturday evenings where I'd need to go directly from the ground to see friends etc it wasn't long before I got one again.

That said, I'm sure this year's renewal price is significantly more than normal - in fact (I may be wrong here) hasn't the price almost now doubled since they first introduced the permits?

[reading_fan]

Yes Dad and I commented the same - I reckon it was £90 or £95 when they first introduced the permits. We have the permits as we come down from the Midlands so makes things a bit easier knowing we have a guaranteed spot.

[Pandoras Box]

Basically works out at £7.82 per game. It's £8 per game (maybe less for Championship) for all the industrial units nearby - and you can get away at least 15 minutes earlier than being stuck waiting for the buses to leave (although you may need to walk for 10 minutes)

[Elm Park Kid]

The only lime I ever parked at the Mad Stad was for a 2nd round league cup game on a Tuesday night. It took me over 45 minutes to just get out of the car park so have never attempted since.

[RoyalBlue]

Basically works out at £7.82 per game. It's £8 per game (maybe less for Championship) for all the industrial units nearby - and you can get away at least 15 minutes earlier than being stuck waiting for the buses to leave (although you may need to walk for 10 minutes)

£8 is the absolute max you should need to pay to park away from the stadium. I have seen parking at £7 and even £6 not that far away. Easily make up for the walking time by not being kept back till the stadium has cleared.

Hopefully the charity parking will be back next season too.

[SPARTA]

You can park 15 minutes walk away for free, and it's safe. Save your money and treat yourself to some exercise.

[Cobi]

You can park 15 minutes walk away for free, and it's safe. Save your money and treat yourself to some exercise.

Yep agree with that.

Yellow are all safe places to park. It's a very quiet area with a lot of old folk living here. 15-20 minute to the ground, and the red is an alley through to Basingstoke Road. Why waste your money on parking when you have decent parking like that?

[P!ssed Off]

Renewal notice come through for 2013/14 - £180.

I'm thinking of jacking it. Anyone out there jacked it in previously and regretted it?

My Dad forgot to renew it one year, the lazy oxford.
Needless to say, he got a lot of abuse and reminders to get it when the next season came along.

If you're going to pay to park somewhere else each match then you won't save much money.
If you're banking on finding a free parking spot somewhere before every match, then surely you'd have to travel to the match a long time before kick off, which would destroy the whole 'it takes too long to get out the car park' argument.

[Fox Talbot]

^^^
It's not so much the money as the aggro and hassle of using the Red car park.

Better off calling it the Red Tape Car Park.

I fancy an old-fashioned walk next season.

[Readingfanman]

Renewal notice come through for 2013/14 - £180.

I'm thinking of jacking it. Anyone out there jacked it in previously and regretted it?

My Dad forgot to renew it one year, the lazy oxford.
Needless to say, he got a lot of abuse and reminders to get it when the next season came along.

If you're going to pay to park somewhere else each match then you won't save much money.
If you're banking on finding a free parking spot somewhere before every match, then surely you'd have to travel to the match a long time before kick off, which would destroy the whole 'it takes too long to get out the car park' argument.

We arrive at 2-25 for our free parking a 15 minute walk from the ground every week. Easy as pie really.

[Green]

I like these kind of discussions - it's always interesting to see how territorial parking is, with every nobber believing his (and call me old school, but it is generally a his) solution is the best.

TBF I guess if you do it 23+ times a season you do learn what suits you, but wherever you park you compromise on something, surely