Bradgate Park seeking to solve parking problems by boosting the number of overflow spaces
BRADGATE Park bosses are planning improvements to car parks that will make hundreds of overflow spaces available throughout the year.
Presently, the grassed parking areas used when the surfaced car parks – at Newtown Linford, and Hallgates, at Cropston – are full, cannot be accessed in the wet winter months, because vehicles would churn up the ground.
That particularly caused problems during lockdown in November, when increased numbers of people headed to the beauty spot to try to get some fresh air.
The surfaced car parks would regularly fill up, meaning extra cars parking on nearby roads caused congestion and access issues. The Bradgate Park Trust, the charity that runs the park, has a plan which it says will make some 370 overflow spaces available at all times.
It has applied to Charnwood Borough Council for permission to work at both sites.
In documents submitted to planners, the trust said: “The improvements to the overflow car parks will provide improved access for vehicles throughout the year. “They will include providing gravel roads to assist vehicular movement and wooden bollards to identify the grass parking bays whilst retaining the current green and paddock feel of the area. “No additional parking spaces will be created. However, the overflow areas will become permanently available through the year.”
In all, there will be 718 spaces, including disabled parking, at Newtown Linford available throughout the year, as well as parking areas at Hunts Hill, near Old John, and at nearby Swithland Woods.
A spokesman for Newtown Linford Parish Council said: “Works to Bradgate Park overflow car parks at Newtown Linford and Hallgates are urgently needed to provide additional all-year-round parking.
“This would help address the issue of dangerously, obstructively and illegally parked vehicles on surrounding roads when Bradgate Park car parks reach capacity.
“The additional spaces that would be provided by these proposals during the winter months would undoubtedly help to alleviate some of the current issues.”
The Bradgate Park Trust, the charity that runs the park, has a plan which it says will make some 370 overflow spaces available at all times