+++
title = "Save Victoria Way"
tags = ["Woking"]
date = "2026-03-21"
author = "John Costa"
toc = true
+++

## Prelude (Late 2024)

I moved to Enterprise Place, Woking. This is an apartment block, with around 120 apartments. Next to our building (physically attached to), is a car park - called Victoria Way.  If you wanted a permit, you'd pay Working Borough Council £1,000 (!) a year, which entitled you to a 24/7/365 parking spot in your chosen car park.

I was happy with this arrangement. I mostly don't drive since I work in London or from home, but my significant other drives to work. She was happy with this arrangement also.

## Trouble (December 2024)

Woking Borough Council announced that the car park would be closed on the 14th of February 2025.

No real reason given, other than _'a risk to public safety'_. 

We were given the alternative to park in the main town car park, Victoria Place. It's a nice car park with plenty of space. The only problem was that it was a 10 minute walk from my apartment. It is also situated in the middle of town - so to walk to your car - you must walk through the centre of town.

This is where our problem began. My partner drives to work, and therefore had to make this trip twice a day, five days a week.

This made the new parking arrangement, not ideal. 

We weren't happy, but we accepted this, and waited patiently for the council to advice us in how to move forward, or for repairs to take place and re-open the Victoria Way car park, which us and many other residents relied on.

## Radio silent (August 2025)

No update was given from the Council, other than some Facebook comments from council leader Anne-Marie.

This situation was frustrating. 

Walking 10 minutes to your car isn't great, but it's not the worst thing in the world. What most impacted us was the cheer lack of communication. We didn't know how to manage our expectations, or plan for the future (when we moved in, parking was non-negotiable, so what should we do?).

At this point, I decided to focus more effort into getting information, or action from the Council.

I had already emailed Mr Will Forster (Woking MP). This was actually a good experience, he was fairly responsive and did what I thought he could do (mostly liaisons between myself and the council). I understand his concerns are broader than a parking issue.

I emailed every Woking councillor. Only Anne-Marie decided to get back to me.

I called Anne-Marie, and we had a half-hour phone call, which was the first time I actually spoke to somehow, who had some authority over these local decisions. It was a productive phone call, I floated some ideas to her, for alternatives for myself and every other Enterprise Place resident, whilst the car park as assessed and later repaired.

One of the alternatives I suggested was Duke's Court car park. Which was large enough to accommodate the small number of parking permits which Enterprise Place residents had (around 36 total).

I kept in contact with Anne-Marie, and would like to thank her, for the help in this matter.

But time went on, and the contact started to fade slowly.

## SaveVictoriaWay.com (September 2025)

I'm not much of an activist. I have no experience in public affairs, nor have I ever really been too involved in a local issue. But I wanted to try something. I'm a software engineer, so naturally I thought of a technological solution, a website!

Hence came `savevictoriaway.com`. The first iteration was made with Lovable (this was my first time trying it out), it did remarkably well, and better than I could at making a somewhat visually appealing website.

I decided to go live with Lovable hosting my project. They give you a Supabase database, and vibe-code everything together for you. The code was _not at all_ good. But I wanted something done quickly, and in an afternoon, I had the website running, with a domain that I bought that day as well.

The website had a simple petition functionality, which allowed people to submit petitions (with the option to submit anonymously).

Now the real problem, and hardest park began. How do I make people aware of this project?

I printed 200 of these.

![Save Victoria Way Poster](https://static.johncosta.tech/save-victoria-way.jpeg)


Me and Rio (my partner), put them through every letter box in our buildings, we put them in the lifts, in the notice boards, and someone (not me) put them very discreetly around Victoria Place car park.

We then posted on local Facebook groups, messaged family members, asked them to spread the word to people they knew were also somewhat affected (basically anyone who goes to or has gone to Woking).

The support was incredible. We hit __100__ signatures the day after I released this website. People who lived in my building, who had some very sad stories.

I'll quote a few.

> I decided to rent in enterprise place specifically because of the accessibility to parking. Paying higher rent for that privellege. Now I'm spending money for nothing

> My husband needs a wheelchair and this car park was by far the easiest to get him in and out of. The ones in town are soo small for this. It needs to reopen. But it won’t because WBC are skint and need the money from selling it on.

>As a resident, it's the only way to get a car. If not, I will have to move away as a car it's essential for me, specially with kids

>i’m a young woman and I live in enterprise place. walking to and from the unsuitable alternative parking we’ve been given has meant i have been whistled at, stared at, and even assaulted recently. i feel extremely unsafe being forced to walk through the town center every single day and late at night just to get home.

> Vital car park for reaching the station safely in the evening and for servicing that area of town including Surrey County Council building now being next door and housing staff each day

The most satisfying part about all this, was that I had created a small outlet to help people who were in a much worse situation than myself.

Sure, it was annoying for Rio to do the walk twice a day, and naturally, it is scarier for a woman to walk through any town or city centre, at night, by themselves. Something to consider when looking at situations like this...

There were parents, elderly residents, and disabled people who relied very heavily on this car park. This was taken from them, and many were left feeling stranded in their own homes, since the 10 minute walk daily was a big challenge in their lives.

It is easy for us, who luckily, don't struggle to walk, or don't need a car. It really gave me perspective, and put me outside of my little bubble of young professionals, in which I mostly live. This situation was _frustrating_ for me and Rio, and very inconvenient, but it wasn't life changing. Some people had it much worse, and I'm most proud that I helped them, even if just in a small way.

Another sad part of this story, is how little trust people seem to have in their local government. Maybe this is problem that has always happened, but I know that there are decent people who work at the concil (although I also know there are a lot of not very nice ones). Woking residents have earned the right to be skeptical. The previous council made Woking into - literally - the most in-debt council in the UK. And everyone is suffering for it. I hope Woking Borough Council (or soon to be West Surrey Council) can rebuild the trust the residents once had.

## SurreyLive (September 2025)

https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/woking-residents-despair-car-park-32790786

> __Note:__ I don't necessarily agree with every word of this article. The title is overly dramatic, but it's still a good article, and a nice over view of what happened. Take it with a pinch of salt though. You know what the media is like.

I reached out to a few news papers or online news sources to see if they'd be interested in the story. I spoke to a reporter from SurreyLive, had a long phone conversation with him, a few days later, we had one of the biggest news agencies in Surrey publish an article about Rio and myself (our SEO is now amazing as well).

## Aron's Introduction (October 2025)

I have a contact page where people can reach out to me (in `savevictoriaway.com`). 

One lady did and put me in contact with Aron, the person in charge of Enterprise Place Residence Association, an entity unknown to me at the time. They were responsible for bringing down a cladding replacement bill (from 2022), from the original £15,000 per leaseholder, to £2,000. A change that came about at the end of a legal fight, with Aron spearheaded, this also resulted in the management company for Enterprise Place being replaced.

Aron is and has been incredible for residents of the building. He was instrumental in making everyone's lives a little bit easier. From what I know, he does this all on his time, with no benefit to self.

I got into contact with him, and offered any help I could to improve the situation. He was already on the case even before I launched the website, talking to the council, and challenging the decision to close the car park.

He was involved in very regular meeting with the council. And he told me as a result of one of the meeting, that the council had brought forward the idea of the residents potentially using Duke's Court car park.

I might never know if this was an independent through than mine and Rio's conversation with Anne-Marie back in August, where I first suggested to her - and she was quite reseccise of - that we could use Duke's Court car park.

I like to think that my suggestion and persistence led to the council floating this idea.

## The Solution (November 2025)

We finally heard that the council was working on giving the residents of Enterprise Place. 

Parking at Duke's Court. Things were finally moving.

Naturally, me and Rio were very happy that we would finally wrap up this rather annoying quest in our lives, and we would have somewhere more convenient to park again.

It took another 2 months to have all the paper work drafted, signed and approved. But in January, we were finally able to park in Duke's Court car park.

## Conclusion

This story has made me reflect on the every day life that everyone faces. I tend to get caught up in my work, in the incredible innovation that we see everyday, and often the terrible events of the world. Sometimes, if we take a step back and look around, there are plenty of every day problems waiting to be solved. We don't all have to collectively live in the 24 hours news cycle.

I'm not the main protagonist of this story - that would be Aron. However, this was the first time I felt like I made a genuine difference to the community in which I live. It also made me think about problem which I thought I would have no influence in.

For you, this might sound completely inconsequential. But there are real people, who's everyday was affected, and has now been improved by the actions of a few people.

I want to thank a few people who worked to solve this issue.

- Aron. Easily the most pivotal person in this story. Without him, I think none of this would have happened.
- Anne-Marie. Being a councillor is a difficult job. She took her time to talk to me, and clearly there were attempts from inside Woking Borough Council to figure out a solution.
- Will Forster. My local MP. He was very quick at responding and did a good job at bringing this situation to the attention of the council.
- Everyone who signed the petition on my website. You helped more than you know.
- SurreyLive for publishing the article, and spreading the word even further.
