A CALL for one hour free parking in Westbury and across Wiltshire has been backed by a petition signed by over 1,000 people.
The petition was launched by Wiltshire MP Duncan Hames and has gained widespread support particularly in Westbury, with many feeling it is needed to give the town a boost.
The introduction of parking charges in Westbury has been heavily criticised with town centre businesses saying it has been a major cause of lost trade with many saying it has left them struggling to survive. And the town has shown support to the free parking campaign with many Westbury residents signing the petition.
Many feel that the introduction of free parking would increase footfall and give more businesses a chance of succeeding.
Westbury town councillor, David Windess said, “I have always been a firm believer that the charges for parking in Westbury should be scrapped. We are supposed to be supporting local business, not driving people out of town with extortionate parking charges.”
Westbury’s Wiltshire councillors Gordon King and David Jenkins also agreed. They said, “We would like these charges to be scrapped altogether to help our fragile town economy; if they cannot, then we would like to see the introduction of new systems that allocates parking time by the amount of money paid and which makes use of already proven technology systems.”
Town councillor Ian Cunningham said, “The town council has always argued that the current charging band assigned to Westbury was unfair and did not reflect the town’s economy and tried hard to persuade Wiltshire Council of this at the last review.”
Westbury’s person of the year Hilary Reed also called for the introduction of free parking. She said, “Lack of free parking affects Westbury residents when they just need to pop to one shop or the bank. Obviously this would increase the time spent in the town and in return, shop owners would benefit.”
Speaking about the petition MP Duncan Hames said, “Wiltshire Liberal Democrat councillors and I have been calling on Wiltshire Council to put the interests of our town centre shops first. As part of that campaign we have been pushing the Conservative administration to restore one hour of free parking in council car parks across Wiltshire.
“We hope to collect as many signatures as possible on the petition and the campaign is running to demonstrate to the Conservative administration that local people clearly feel the current parking charge regime to be unfair and damaging to our town centres. With your support we believe we can force them to listen and reintroduce the one hour of free parking across Wiltshire Council’s car parks.”
Over the summer Duncan Hames and supporters have been gathering support for the petition.
The campaign has established an online petition at www.WiltshireFreeParking.org. Anyone can sign the petition by visiting the website and signing it online or downloading a petition sheet from the site.
