On July 1, the paid parking zone was extended in the city center of Rochefort (Charente-Maritime). Many employees denounce a unilateral decision and a lack of alternative solutions. False, answers the municipality.
No more free parking for some 500 employees of the LPO, the CCI, the prison or even the Corderie Royale in Rochefort. Since July 1, the paid parking zone has expanded in the city center. So, symbolically, and to mark their anger, they covered parking meters.
Thierry Rossignol has already done his accounts. Parking to come to work can now cost him 70 to 140 euros per month. “It’s a very substantial sum. It represents less purchasing power, and money that we will no longer spend in the shops of the city” laments this employee of Rochefort Habitat Océan. Like the other demonstrators, he denounces a lack of dialogue with the municipality.
“There was no consultation” adds Nicolas Gendre. Employee within the League for the Protection of Birds, he also points to a total absence of an alternative proposal from the municipality of Rochefortaise. “We are told about a 120-space park and ride car park for the month of September, but we are 500 employees!” he argues.
In Niort, for example, a preferential rate has been set up for employees in the city center at €1.50 per day. When you have the political will, it is possible.
Nicolas Gendre, disgruntled employee
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Faced with this bronca, the mayor Hervé Blanché admits having taken an unpopular but essential decision to avoid congestion in the city center. “I had already been alerted to this file during my previous term of office, but I was not ready” he explains.
Free parking is not managed parking. And today we have the need to manage this parking lot to anticipate a saturation of the city.
Hervé Blanché, Mayor of Rochefort
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As for those who reproach him for not having put in place alternative solutions, he retorts. “There are 800 spaces in the Roy Bry car park, 200 spaces at the Polygone, and soon 130 near Dassault” he details. “The unhappy will just have to change their habits and maybe agree to walk 10 minutes”.
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