I’m delighted to claim a new year win following more than a year of pestering Ribble Valley Borough Council to improve the drainage on Pope Croft Car Park. Yesterday was Wednesday (apparently) and I was informed that the work they carried out yesterday was to resolve the drainage problems that have plagued the centre of the car park for a long time.

The Assistant Engineer who led the project for the Council said “I can’t promise that it will never flood again but it should be good for the foreseeable future.”

I’ll take that as a good win to kick off the year.

I’m also pleased to announce that further work will be taking place from next Monday 12th throughout the week (weather permitting) to re-surface the car park as it is getting ready for that. All of this work was meant to be done before Christmas however weather and other delays pushed the works to next week.

My understanding is that the work will be done in stages so that the car park will still be partially open and you will be able to find a parking space. Please be patient with the work teams as they carry out the work. There may be a little bit of disruption but hopefully it will be minimal.

My final bit of wonderful news regarding the car park is confirmation from RVBC that the enforcement around pick up and drop off times for the school is aware of and sensitive to parents picking up and dropping of their children.

This means:

  1. There is a standard 10 minute grace period.
  2. The Parking attendant doesn’t arrive in Ribchester until after dropping off time.
  3. my request for a similar sensitivity around dropping off time has been accepted so parents will have reasonable time to park up, walk to the school to collect their child and return to their car before they receive a ticket. It may help to put a note in your windscreen or even for the school to issue a card.
  4. If, in the rare occurence of still receiving a ticket, I’ve been assured that any appeal which notes the reason for parking was school pickup will be looked favourably on.