Dear subtext,
I don’t normally email but as a fairly new starter to Lancaster I was gobsmacked yesterday when I received my new parking permit through the post. Just seems a waste of money to me.
A second class stamp costs 58p. Lancaster has 2,500 staff. So if 80% apply for a parking permit that is a cost of = £1,160.
Why don’t they use internal post? Do we even have one? Or send out in batches to departments so staff can collect from named individuals. They could even use the money saved on postage to invest in digital technology that could scan licence plates to see if people have a pass or not, so moving to an automated system would save loads of time and money in the long run.
Just seems crazy to me. I couldn’t find a suggestion page or anything from the staff intranet so thought I would email you! Rant over!!!
Thanks
Jennifer Kilner
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Dear subtext,
And so it begins again: the daily ‘Lancaster Thousand Tonner’, in which hundreds of cars fight their way onto the campus, their drivers – white knuckled and perspiring – engaging in a mechanised gavotte designed to minimise the distance between vehicle and office. The University, increasingly a parking lot with facilities for teaching and research, must surely accept that the problem cannot be solved by carving out more and more of the estate to accommodate the motorist. But it also behoves the enlightened (?) community that make up the majority on campus to consider alternative modes of transport, and while there are no doubt some who must move children or lack other travel options, there will be others not so constrained. I suggest that for a start the latter group consider other privately and socially healthy choices. Alternatively, they can just stick with their cars and continue to bugger up the planet.
Bob Rothschild