Shrewsbury’s Park and Ride service and town centre car parks could see a price rise of up to 20 per cent under plans unveiled by the borough council.Officials want to increase parking charges to reduce the number of cars going into the town centre.
They want to raise the cost of the bus service by 20p to £1.20 from March 31 as well as increasing the cost of parking in town centre short stay car parks for up to one hour from £1 to £1.20.
Parking for up to two hours will go up from £2.20 to £2.50 - a 13.6 per cent increase.Charges for season permits for off street car parks will go up by five per cent.
Councillors will consider ratifying officer recommendations at a cabinet meeting on Monday.
Assistant council manager Andy Goldsmith said the council would not make a profit from the increases because it was about “striking a balance.”
Sustainable
Mr Goldsmith said char- ges were going up on only two tariffs in three car parks - Bridge Street, St Austin’s and The Tannery.
He said: “This has been out to consultation and will come back on Monday to be ratified. We needed to increase Park and Ride - it has not been increased for four years and we need to make it sustainable.
“Parking charges increase every year. This increase is only on short stay. All other charges will stay the same.
“You can still come in and park in the Frankwell car park for three hours for £2.30 and in Abbey Foregate for £1.40 for three hours, so it’s making car parks in the town centre more expensive than those on the edge.”
He added: “The number of people using the car parks has reduced whereas Park and Ride has increased. The- re is a desire to reduce the amount of traffic entering the town centre but we also want a vibrant town centre.
“We do not want to price people out of the town but there is a wish to use public transport more and reduce the volume of traffic.”
But Karen Lloyd, of the Civic Society, said the price hike was bad for tourism and residents who park in the town. She said: “It’s one more nail in the coffin for shopping in the town centre. It’s encouraging people yet again to use out of town sites.”
7 Comments
Why are they increasing the cost of Park & Ride? If anything, the cost should be lower. Load the cost on town centre car parks and drive the motorist out of the centre [sorry for the awful pun].
This obviously has nothing to do with keeping cars out of the town because as Harold pointed out they would reduce the cost of park and ride if this was their true aim. Just another way of bleeding us dry. And excuse me for being naive but what is wrong with having cars in the town centre. Its hardly grid lock down town New York is it.
I agree why put up P&R?
Harold, without a relief road, you’re never going to drive motorists out of the town centre. Not sure that will even happen either looking at past performance. By the way, why do YOU want to drive the motorists out of the town centre? Do you live in the town centre - do you consider it’s too noisy, polluting or dangerous? I used to live in the town centre and considered the buses to be all those things.
Hmmm perhaps we are supposed to walk into Shrewsbury from Church Stretton to do our shopping? What IS the point of raising the Park and Ride fee?
Do you know what I’d like to know…how many trips do these
buses make in one day and how many passengers in total?
So from that what is the average no. of passengers per trip
through the day. I can imagine those engines consume a huge
amount of fuel! Is it environmentally friendly? not so sure,
more of a business if you ask me.
i can understand putting the price of parking up in the town, the p & r should be encouraging motorists to park out of town. however £1.20 is excellent value as p & r is £1.75 in exeter and well over £2 in bristol. you lucky people
On walking around town it saddens me to see the number of empty shops and closing down sales which appears to be growing. The Borough must be aware of this. Raising parking and park and ride fee’s will only add to the number of shoppers choosing other towns to visit. We should be encouraging shoppers and visitors to come to Shrewsbury not discouraging them. Come on Borough Officials get out of the Guildhall and see what is happening!