Parking charges on council-run car parks in Nantwich will be scrapped on three Saturdays before Christmas.
The move is designed to boost trade in Nantwich during the peak festive shopping period.
Parking will be free on Snow Hill, Bowling Green and Civic Hall car parks on December 6, 13 and 20 from 10am.
Cheshire East Council has announced the move for 28 of its car parks.
Parking will continue to be free after 3pm at another seven car parks where a ‘free after three’ offer is already running – including Snow Hill in Nantwich.
Cllr Michael Jones, Leader of Cheshire East Council, said: “We believe in putting residents and businesses first, so we have listened to them and to the town councils.
“This action will help our town centres to make the most of the Christmas shopping period.”
Cllr David Topping, Cheshire East’s Cabinet member for service commissioning, said: “Scrapping charges on these three days will reduce the cost of Christmas and boost footfall in our town centres.
“We are pleased to be able to support local residents and businesses in this way and to mark Small Business Day on December 6.”
Cheshire East also plans to roll out its RingGo pay-by-phone system to more car parks.
This is both informative and shocking. Whilst other towns locally enjoy free parking and car park repairs subsidised by Crewe and Nantwich, our council’s own figures show they made a half million pounds profit from car parking..http://www.crewechronicle.co.uk/news/council-makes-nearly-750k-profit-8375798
The main problem about parking charges in Nantwich is: why is it still free to park in Sandbach, Alsager, and Middlewich, all similar sizes towns to Nantwich? Their car parks need maintaining and lighting etc too, and we in Nantwich are subsidising this.
Who cares? Lucky them, I say.
If I wanted free car parking I’d live in Sandbach, Alsager or Middlewich. But some sacrifices are just too great…
I don’t understand all the fuss about car parking charges. You get 2 hours shopping or sight-seeing (surely long enough for anyone in Nantwich) for a quid. How much did your car cost? How much is petrol? If you can own and run a car you can undoubtedly afford a few pounds a weeks to park it. If not, try walking (I would say, catch a bus, but that’s definitely too expensive round here).
And … car parks are absolutely not cost-free. They have to be lit, white-lined, resurfaced, litter-picked and weeded. The land they occupy is potentially valuable real estate – doing nothing.
Isn’t there an argument for scrapping charges completely? Most car parks have never been used for anything else, and need little upkeep. Anyone parking in town is likely to be adding to the town’s economy and parking charges deter casual visitors. There’s the rebate scheme, of course, but I don’t think I’ve seen any shops that advertise they’re part of it.