Powys town council could rent parking spaces to offer them free to visitors

Knighton Town Council is looking into paying for car parking spaces in the town to then offer them free to visitors.

Councillor Sally Vaughan Ross suggested the idea at a recent town council meeting after seeing neighbouring Presteigne running a similar scheme.

She asked members what they would think about the town council paying for parking spaces for two Saturdays a month and then offering them free to visitors to encourage people to shop in the town.

She said she had contacted Powys County Council and they would only allow the Bowling Green Lane car park to be rented to the town council – which she said would “defeat the object”.

“They will not rent out the Norton Arms car park because it is short stay. I think Bowling Green Lane car park is defeating the object really. It would cost £59.51 a day plus a one-off administration fee of £98.40, ” Councillor Vaughan said.

“I think it is something that would benefit the whole of the town and not just one part of it,” she added.

Knighton mayor Councillor Tom Taylor said Presteigne is running a similar scheme but he does not know how they are monitoring the success of it.

Councillor Ben Butler said the Bowling Green Lane car park is too far away from the shops for people and they would just find free parking spaces in the street but Councillor Petranella Ford said that if the council was going to do it, itshould offer the free parking on the day that the market is in the community centre.

“If we want to get more visitors to the town then the Bowling Green Lane car park is the place to bring people in and at about £60 a day that is cheap as chips really. If we wanted the car park behind the Knighton Hotel I would suggest we contact county councillor Corinna Kenyon-Wade and ask her to invite the officers down so we can have discussions about it.”

Councillor Taylor said they need to know how many people use Bowling Green Lane car park on a Saturday to get some idea of the benefit it would offer and he suggestedthey could run a three-month trial over the summer.

Members unanimously agreed to look further into subsidising parking on Bowling Green Lane on market days from May until October, which would cost about £460.

They will also try and get a baseline of the numbers using the car park before any free parking would start so they can gauge how successful it is, if they go ahead.