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Following concerns recently expressed about parking and related traffic problems in Station Road we met the management of Enterprise Rent-a-Car.
The Community has a mixed but largely positive view of the business. It’s positive for the village and it’s probably an important customer of the petrol station. However there are times when it seems that every car on Station Road is from Enterprise and then it becomes a problem.
Enterprise is an interesting company (inasmuch as a car rental company can be interesting). The parent company is Enterprise Holdings (http://www.
It is conscious of the parking issue and has a policy of not parking its vans outside the petrol station where they obstruct sight lines and of not parking several cars together and depriving residents of opportunities to park. It does not park in any of the side streets and instead goes further afield if it still needs spaces to park. It is also careful not to park in any way which will obstruct.
Most times this works but at holiday weekends where there’s a big turnover it runs into problems so we talked about a number of options to avoid the apparent over-parking of Easter weekend. We also agreed that if a problem is foreseen that Enterprise would flag this up as soon as possible.
The managers we met were open and keen to talk about ways in which Enterprise could better manage its business with minimal impact on the villages. It’s very willing to address specific issues and any resident with a particular grumble is welcome to visit and talk it through.
I very much appreciate having Enterprise in the village and would hate to see them go.
While I agree that often they do have a lot of cars and vans on Station road (I cycle this way every day), I think they cope remarkably well despite their cramped location.
Now if only there was some large disused patch of land opposite that could be utilised in some way….
I would like them to consider their immediate neighbours and the hours in which they clean the cars and vans using high pressure washers and vacuums. Being woken up at 7:30am on a Saturday or 11:30/1:30 on any night by these machines is really offensive. I have spoken to them on many occasion over the years about this and their response has not been considerate at all.
I have just walked into Histon at 9pm (it is a Sunday) and I noticed: two vehicles parked in Station Road near their premises; one large van parked outside the Baptist Church with two wheels on the pavement; another large van in Poplar Road opposite the entrance to The Poplars, (it has been parked there since 11am Saturday, or longer). I also noticed that there was no shortage of off-road parking space adjacent to their premises this evening. I have nothing against Enterprise, but they do make their vehicles rather obvious, especially if they are parked illegally or inconsiderately.