Monday, February 01, 2010

Car-parks

Yes that bugbear of mine again raises its ugly head from my visits to B&Q and Homebase. A quick stop off at Crossley Retail Park though. As I've mentioned the connection from the town side pavement to the Park leads straight into the car-park itself. If you head straight over to Curry's you're blocked by corner shrubbery, to the left parked cars running that way and to the right a set of parked cars running away from you. So you walk in the 'road'. People please two bollards to the left of the shrubbery and you'd be able to walk straight across at the expense of one car-parking space in exactly the same way as you've already done opposite Gods!


Anyway Homebase. Off the island and into a 10mph zone, if you spot the sign that is as it's not facing the direction you're coming from. Over the speed bump that's had all markings worn off so you can miss it and then turn right into the car-park.

Okay first off here the exit is further down so you're trying to cross against any traffic trying to leave. It's not hard people - if you're turning left it's in/out if you're turning right it's out/in as you approach.

Okay at least they have a crossing to the door, except as you leave the store it runs across the road and the length of a bay then stops. So you walk out across it, get to the end and look at the cars parked either side of you, the cars parked at each diagonal in front of you, and the car parked directly in front of you; then turn around to walk in the road.

B&Q is just as fun, coming from Bus Station island off the slip into a 5mph zone you approach a mini-island, but there's a crossing first. So if someone wants to cross you let them go, get to the island and if there's traffic there you stop. Except if you stop you're parked over the crossing (a no-no) if you stop before the crossing you can't see if you can clear the island. How the hell did this get approved?

You also have to watch where you're going. Enter the car-park and turn left at the end towards more bays and if you don't find any you're stuck because it's a dead-end. Seriously it's even got a little kink at the end so you can't tell this until you've turned down it.

Find somewhere to park and of course you're walking in the road despite the foliage stuck between a couple of rows leading in the right direction they could have turned into a path. That is if you can find the entrance, it's not marked but hey it's that big box-out on the front with doors on the two shorter ends opposite each other.

Oh but you can't get to the nearest set of doors because they've set up flower racks between the bollards fronting the path; so you have to walk along the front then turn 360 to go into the entrance.

I just, I just... gah. How could anyone lay this out and not spot the problems?

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