The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
All day parking offer in city helps drive boom in usage
Anewpricing strategy at an underused city car park is proving a hit with motorists, but there are no plans to make it more commonplace. Peterborough City Council has introduced a charge of £ 3 for all day parking at the Pleasure Fair Meadowcarpark, in Oundle Road.
This compares to a cost of £ 5.50 for up to 10 hours at the city council’s long- stay car parks and mirrors charges at the Wirrina, in Bishop’s Road, whichcameintotheauthority’s ownership in 2011.
Thenewratewasintroduced at thePleasureFairMeadowcar park at the start of December and in the two peak Christmas weeks ( starting December 17) there wasa30percentincrease in its use- withtransactionsrising from 598 to 777.
The offer was due to expire at the end of January, but the city council says it is now likely to continue.
A spokeswoman for the authority said the authority was “pleased” the cheaper all day rate had been met with a rise in visitors, but ruled out an immediate roll out of such pricing across the city.
She said: “As the Pleasure Fair Meadow car park is one of the city council’s more underused car parks due to its distance from the city centre, a £ 3 all day tariff was introduced to encourage use of the car park.”
She added: “There are no plans to introduce £ 3 all day parking at any other council car parks at this time.”
Cllr Nazim Khan, Labour member for the Central ward for the city council, welcomed the changed fees.
He said: “I think it’s a welcome move because weneed to bring people into the city centre becauseourshopsarereally struggling.”
He felt while it may not be feasible to offer a £ 3 all day rate at other city council- run car parks due to their relative popularity, he encouraged the authority to look at its pricing now that Christmas and New Year has passed.
He said: “I think our car parks are becoming empty a bit more and so are the shops. I think it would encourage people to come in to the city centre and use the shops.”