Car Park Permits and One Stop Shops - an update

I've now had an answer from the Council about the sale of parking permits in One Stop Shops. As previously blogged, Cornwall Council is centralising the sale of parking permits in St Austell so they will no longer be available directly from One Stop Shops.

My concern was that people would go to the OSS expecting to be able to renew their permit and find that they need to send off a form. I was worried that they would have to pay for more expensive daily tickets until their permits arrived.

I asked whether the Council was going to write to current permit holders to tell them about the change. The answer I have now received is that they will not be doing so, but they have another solution as Local Transport Manager Peter Moore explains:

"A person can still go to the OSS and complete the transaction there, pay, fill in the electronic form with help if necessary. The change is then that the permit will be dispatched by post from our central team.

If a person leaves it to the last minute to buy the ticket, we will grant a period of 7 days grace to using the old pass, this will cover the period of the posting of the new pass. No-one will therefore be paying daily tickets whilst waiting for a replacement.

People can also now buy the pass over the internet, which we suspect will become the normal method for most people."

I am still concerned that this is a withdrawal of a service that I think should be offered directly from One Stop Shops, but I am gratified to hear that no one should lose out financially from the change.