Charges axed at popular Whitchurch car park
Council say it will help boost the rural economy
Parking charges at Bell Street car park in Whitchurch have been cut to try and boost the town's economy.
Charges for stays over one hour were introduced at the car park in May this year following £120,000 of improvement work to increase capacity and meet the needs of the town’s residents and visitors.
Now the new cabinet member responsible for parking in the borough has announced that these charges will be removed to support businesses and residents in Whitchurch and encourage more people to visit.
Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning and Infrastructure Cllr Andy Konieczko said:
“Supporting our rural communities during these challenging economic times, where our residents and businesses are struggling with the cost of living, is vital. We need to encourage people to spend locally by removing barriers such as charging in our rural car parks.
“We will always encourage people to walk, cycle or take public transport where they can but this isn’t always possible when travelling to our rural areas. As a council we have made significant improvements to the car park at Bell Street to allow more people to park, make it easier to do so and enable more sustainable methods of travel to the town by introducing electric vehicle charging.
“While the improvements have been received positively, the introduction of charging at the car park was not. We have listened to those people who objected to the charges when they were introduced.
“We want to encourage more people into the town centre and help our rural communities to thrive and removing charging at this car park will support this.”
Charging at the car park is set to stop from today (Monday 14 August). Those residents and businesses who paid for permits will be contacted and reimbursed for the remainder of the year.
The move to stop charging at Bell Street follows the new Cabinet’s decision to also remove charging for visitors to the Eastrop Park in Basingstoke.