Parking at Stoney

[dry suit diver]

Originally Posted by Scubee

I used to think that one way of sorting out the weekend parking issue, and encourage diverlog membership, would be to give priority in the bottom carpark to diverlog holders. But as i thought about it a bit more, i thought perhaps all that does is shift the problem. It is what they have done at Vobster. The bottom car park is tiny (in comparison to Stoney), and you can't reserve a space in it unless you are a member - which is fair enough. So I don't go to Vobster because the other benefits doesn't make it worthwhile, and there is no way I am hiking up and down that hill which makes Stoney's cardiac hill look like a walk in the park .
It makes sense for Stoney to have an almost unlimited number of prebooking spaces available, it is much safer for divers not to have a stupidly early start when they are diving.

The idea of only letting multi user cars in the bottom car park is not brilliant, though. It might be a 'green policy' but if my buddy comes from a long way off, i would be a bit miffed if we were both stuck in the upper car park just because i drove alone.

yes but at vobster they do let you drive the car to the bottom and offload gear before asking not ordering you to go to the top car park.

they dont charge for reserving a space and the burger van is open when you get there not an hour or so later

you can get nitrox at weekends the air queue isn't like the M25 on a friday night.

[yazzyfooty]

What was really bizarre last week at Stoney apart from bottom car park being half empty at 8am but when eventually people did start to arrive and double parked o bottom car park the pay per park areas were empty! You would think that as it was obvious that no one had pre booked them that they could have opened them to general parking.

[GLOC]

Originally Posted by Scubee

I used to think that one way of sorting out the weekend parking issue, and encourage diverlog membership, would be to give priority in the bottom carpark to diverlog holders. But as i thought about it a bit more, i thought perhaps all that does is shift the problem. It is what they have done at Vobster. The bottom car park is tiny (in comparison to Stoney), and you can't reserve a space in it unless you are a member - which is fair enough. So I don't go to Vobster because the other benefits doesn't make it worthwhile, and there is no way I am hiking up and down that hill which makes Stoney's cardiac hill look like a walk in the park .

Was down at Vobster this week and speaking to Tim there as there was a little bit of building work going on

They are extending the schools parking where the 'swimming pool' used to be and further around the corner and extending the main car park twoards and over the stream giving them another 50+ car parking spaces.

They are also trying to get the entry process sped up so that people aren't wasting their time in the queue. To this end you can download the entry forms and fill them out at home and then just hand them over. Saves a little time

Regards

[Scuby]

Originally Posted by kuki9591

As an alternative to extending the scheme, what about introducing a scheme where only cars with more than one person are permitted to use the lower carpark.

Encouraging car sharing definitely makes sense for a site so limited in parking space. But having car-share only probably isn't the right idea.

Haven't been to Stoney for years now, but when we went we'd usually turn up in a minibus with 6-8 people. That's 6-8 paying divers, taking up one parking space (we'd prefer two, but they were too stupid to understand that it's better for them having people travel in one vehicle rather than 5). As a result we usually had people coming in cars too, rather than the bus, so they could park behind / next to us and leave as much space as possible so we could at least open the doors! So in fact, instead of taking up 2 spaces, we took up 3 or 4 by bringing extra cars that we didn't need, other than to make space.

Personally i'd go for something more like dropping entry prices by a couple of £, but have a £5 or £10 per car charge. Subtle encouragement, without going crazy. Sadly, i'm sure they will catch onto this idea, but instead charge for parking without any drop in entry prices. And a sensible "maybe if they've got a bus full of people we could allow them an extra space" policy wouldn't go amiss!

Luckily I don't have to go there anymore

David

[Scubee]

Originally Posted by GLOC

Was down at Vobster this week and speaking to Tim there as there was a little bit of building work going on

They are extending the schools parking where the 'swimming pool' used to be and further around the corner and extending the main car park twoards and over the stream giving them another 50+ car parking spaces.

They are also trying to get the entry process sped up so that people aren't wasting their time in the queue. To this end you can download the entry forms and fill them out at home and then just hand them over. Saves a little time

Regards

That will be a help. the last time I was there, I joined the queue at 8.25 and got in at about 9.45 which was, in my view, unacceptable (particularly as i was dying to use the facilities!).
Its a shame, because there are so few decent training sites.

[DIVE BUDDHA]

Originally Posted by Scubee

That will be a help. the last time I was there, I joined the queue at 8.25 and got in at about 9.45 which was, in my view, unacceptable (particularly as i was dying to use the facilities!).
Its a shame, because there are so few decent training sites.

at least at stoney the open the toilets at around 6am !

as for the parking lol its the nature of the beast at stoney and has been a contencious issue as long as i can rememeber !

at least you lot with cars had the choice of pre booking me and chris cant even pre book the van in !

bloody typical!

[dry suit diver]

Originally Posted by DIVE BUDDHA

at least at stoney the open the toilets at around 6am !

as for the parking lol its the nature of the beast at stoney and has been a contencious issue as long as i can rememeber !

at least you lot with cars had the choice of pre booking me and chris cant even pre book the van in !

bloody typical!

I need to leave london about 2-3 hours before vobby opens so am usually 1st in queue as you just don't know what traffic will be like through the city. I just pee in the hedge

[DIVE BUDDHA]

Originally Posted by dry suit diver

I just pee in the hedge

lol ya not the only one mate

[Arfie]

Originally Posted by Scuby

Personally i'd go for something more like dropping entry prices by a couple of £, but have a £5 or £10 per car charge. Subtle encouragement, without going crazy. Sadly, i'm sure they will catch onto this idea, but instead charge for parking without any drop in entry prices. And a sensible "maybe if they've got a bus full of people we could allow them an extra space" policy wouldn't go amiss!

They do that at Blue Lagoon, it's a fiver per diver and a fiver per car.

I think the OP's original idea could work, though as you already have to pay £10 to get in, another £10 per car is a bit steep if they are doing it for the whole car park. With the amount of cash coming in you'd think they could tarmac the top car park and provide some trolleys to get your kit down to the waterside.

Arfie

[Fiona]

I spent the weekend at Stoney doing some surface cover.

Friday arrived at 11.15am - car park half empty.

Saturday arrived about 11ish, no problem on the bottom car park.

Sunday arrived about 9.30 again no problem on the bottom car park.

Although there will probably be more people there next week, I don't think I would be queuing up at 6am.

There woud have been more spaces available on Saturday had people not taken up two spaces to park a car and one transit type van took another space just so they could sit in their chairs with a pinic table.

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Stoney I hope you took on board some of the comments we made yesterday afternoon. Out of the water at 3pm, at 3.20 they had already locked the changing rooms and the pub was just about to shut.

Where was the customer service.