Chester Zoo Chester Zoo now charging visitors to park closer to entrance

Chester Zoo now charging visitors to park closer to entrance

Chester Zoo will now start charging visitors who want to park closer to the entrance.

The zoo has introduced 240 Premium Parking spaces - in addition to the 6,000 free parking spaces - to allow guests and members the opportunity to park closer to the main entrance gates.

Costing £5 per vehicle, the new parking spaces are available to book online in advance and can also be purchased on the day.

However some families have said Chester Zoo should be "ashamed" of the new parking area.

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Why don't we have a not like (boo) button! First come first served imo!!

 

As someone with accelerated arthritis who requires a walker or a rented motor scooter to visit zoos, this is worrisome. Does the zoo have special handicapped parking close by the entrance? If not, this is quite a blow to those already spend money for admission and motorized scooters. If I were just on foot with a walker at the very back of 6000 parking spaces and all the scooters had been rented, I can honestly say that my legs would only allow me to see a small part of the zoo before turning around and crossing the vast 6000 spaces. People with disabilities still have interests, and some go to the zoo alone, without someone to drop them off. If I were in Chester, this could be a very sad experience for me.

 

There are free disabled parking spaces directly outside the gate for the main entrance.

 

UK law requires they provide a certain number of disabled parking places.

But this still is a bit of an own goal for the zoo, I assume it is the area just behind the disabled parking area (which I park in every time I go). Will it put me off going no, will I complain yes...

 

As long as the disabled spaces aren't affected this is neither here nor there for me. It's a tiny fraction of the spaces that are being used - I have no intention of using it so will just ignore it!

 

This leaves a bad taste in my mouth, it smacks of profiteering. It also impacts those with limited mobility who don't qualify for a disabled badge, of which there are many.

There are of course many disabled bays nearest the entrance, but a number of those were recently moved further away to make way for electric charging points.

 

Profiteering may or may not be a reasonable accusation but I'm struggling to imagine it would have much impact on the people you mention given:

1. The reserving of so (relatively) few places would only result in a little extra distance to cover;
2. Given the people you mention are going to make their way around a vast zoo I'm assuming they've got a way of dealing with that which can also assist with the relatively small additional travel caused by this policy.

Additionally, in my (admittedly limited) experience authorities seem quite generous in giving out disabled badges to those with limited mobility so it may be you're talking about a small sub-set in any case.

 

That's a understandable assumption, although it doesn't consider the zoo visitors who find it difficult to walk much further than the turnstiles and usually only visit the cafe, elephants and warthogs. I know half a dozen such cases, but speaking from personal experience up until recently my parents (zoo members for the last sixty years) could just about make it to the Tsavo Aviary and back. Adding another twenty or thirty metres will make a big difference, especially when there are now so few places to sit down along the pathways.

In my experience, the authorities in the Chester region aren't generous at all. My father, with terminal lung cancer, does not qualify. You'll find many such cases.

 

Wow, I'm shocked and appalled -obviously there is significant variation between regions/cases.

Do people really pay an entrance fee for that? I'm genuinely impressed at their dedication.

 

When mobility-challenged in any way, one starts to count steps. I don't leave my second floor to return something downstairs; it waits in a pile of things that I'll take down all at once. Same for downstairs stuff or book bag coming up. When I had both knees replaced, I had a fridge and microwave upstairs. It becomes avoiding things like stairs (that will shorten the life of the prostheses) and saving energy for, say, a trip to the zoo, where a lot of walking is required. Motor scooters are expensive and aren't even available in my home zoo, NZP, because of the hilly terrain. And motor scooters are offered on a "first come, first serve" basis; to give you an idea, the huge Bronx Zoo has only 8 scooters. I, of course, try to go when the zoo is less crowded, but if that scooter isn't available, my visit will be quite curtailed. Recently, I blithely thought of seeing what the Easter Monday tradition at the zoo was. Well! What it was was every living being in Washington, DC goes to the zoo that day! Parking was filled by 8:30 AM, and GPS showed red traffic extending out 2 miles from 6 points surrounding the zoo. Fortunately I wasn't alone and was dropped off, but if I had been, a 4-hour walk roundtrip just getting to the zoo would have used up more than whatever capacity I had for the zoo itself. Getting a handicapped placard and ID here requires forms for at least one doctor to fill out explaining the particular disability. If I had to make it past 6000 spaces and find no scooters were available, I'd have to find a friendly animal to take me in for the night lol so I could be at the front door for a scooter bright and early and finally get to see the zoo.

 

I would question whoever has advised your father is not eligible - my understanding of the Blue Badge scheme is that it is national and follows the below criteria. I'm really sorry about your father - I've had cancer myself, lost both my dad and sister to the disease and I admin for a Facebook forum for younger ladies with breast cancer. I understand how devastating it is.

 

Of course, despite many visits under the "new" system in my head I still think of the old entrance set-up.

 

I am with @Shorts on this one - I appreciate this will cause an extra distance to be covered but it is not unduly demanding imo, and I say that as someone who has had mobility issues myself. The terrain is flat, difference in distance will be small and it is such a limited number of spaces you would not have been guaranteed to get one anyway. It does however drive me up the wall when you see comments like this:



There is no compulsion to pay for this and families with young children (who do not have any additional mobility needs) are perfectly capable of covering an extra 3 minute (if that) walk across the carpark. I wish these people with fully functional limbs, healthy children and state of the art buggies would appreciate how lucky they have it and stop whining about something that is not even an inconvenience.

 

Do you think it is only huge organisations like Chester with their market and media dominance who could 'get away' with this - or could we all try it?

Having spent many tens of thousands of pounds (of borrowed money) earlier in the year on doubling our own hard-standing, it would be very logical to be able to charge for the use of it. We'd so much have preferred to have used the money for something else.

Chester might be able to ride out (ignore, maybe?) the (social) media back-lash, but I'm not sure we'd all be brave enough...

 

I guess it is a matter of confidence that people would be willing to pay and continue to visit - regardless of any media backlash which will of course blow over. For premium parking the size of the carpark is obviously the biggest issue. Chester will have thousands of spaces available and in most cases the premium spots will not be the only spaces available. In a smaller carpark that regularly fills up you'd effectively be forcing latecomers to pay - which would not get a great response and may prevent people visiting if it was a regular occurance.

Assuming space is not an issue optional 'premium' parking should not create too much negative impact - fully paid parking may. For the occasional visitor I imagine fully paid parking would not make a lot of difference. For the annual passholder I believe it would. I don't know if zoos with paid parking (Dudley / Blackpool?) have it included as part of their annual passes... I think Whipsnade did before their carpark became free.

 

Mmmm.... if it is only a couple of hundred spaces at most, out of many thousands, then it doesn't seem worth the grief for a zoo with Chester's income. They could make more money by producing a selling a guide-book!

My guess would be that is is a 'water-tester', and if tolerated will be gradually rolled out over more and more of the car-parks. Much easier to regularly increase it little by little, than to introduce in the first place.

 

Bristol Zoo membership gives a reduction on the parking fee.

 

Edinburgh is the same, £4 to park if not a member, £2 if you are a member, or free if you purchase a car parking pass which is £10 annually.