IpsMyths: Bury St Edmunds' town centre outperforms Ipswich's because parking is more accessible and affordable
In the ongoing debate about the vitality of our town centre, Bury St Edmunds is often lauded over Ipswich for the accessibility and affordability of its parking. But is there truth behind the claims that Bury's parking options outshine those of Ipswich?
The myth: I've heard and seen multiple people say that Bury St Edmunds has a stronger town centre than Ipswich because there is more parking and it's cheaper.
Why it matters: The town centre should be the beating heart of our community, but like many others around the country, Ipswich's town centre has struggled in recent times. Other town centres in Suffolk, Bury St. Edmunds in particular, are held up as shining examples of "how it should be done."
The analysis: We analysed the number of parking spaces at car parks within a 15-minute walk of a single point in each town centre and the cost to park at each car park for one, two, or three hours. We then took an average hourly rate for each car park and for the town as a whole.
Here's what we found.
There is more town centre parking in Ipswich: Ipswich has 3,241 parking spaces within a 15-minute walk of the town centre. Bury has 2,504 spaces – 737 (23%) less than Ipswich.
Yes, but there are fewer per capita: Ipswich may have more spaces, but it has far fewer spaces comparable to its population than Bury, with 17 spaces per one thousand people compared to Bury's 57.
Put another way, Bury has 3.4x more parking spaces per person than Ipswich.
Parking is also cheaper in Bury St Edmunds: The average hourly cost for a 3-hour stay in Bury St Edmunds is £1.18 – that's £0.55 per hour (32%) cheaper than Ipswich, where it costs an average of £1.73 per hour to park.
The bottom line: Our analysis doesn't prove that Bury's town centre outperforms Ipswich because of parking, or that it even outperforms our town centre at all, but it does prove the myth that parking is more expensive and that there are fewer places to park in Ipswich.
This issue is probably compounded on match days when Ipswich are playing at home, where parking can be much trickier.
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