Monday, 14 October 2024 06:00

It's after the first hour free was scrapped in Buckinghamshire Council controlled car parks.

Since the new charge was introduced, shop keepers and local businesses in the Wendover High Street say they've noticed a drop in weekly takings.

For years for the first hour as been free, which enabled locals and visitors to Wendover to pop into the local shops.

One car park user couldn't understand why Bucks Council has made these changes, saying they should be encouraging people to shop local, not force them to out of town retail parks;

Bucks Radio visited the car park last week, and found both machines were out of order, while shopper couldn't get her 'Ringo' app to open. Another car park user told us this wasn't the first time he'd been unable to pay for his parking;

We've contacted Buckinghamshire Council for their comments:

Steven Broadbent, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Transport said: "The one-hour parking charge at Wendover has been introduced following a public consultation that ran earlier this year. The purpose of the charge is to start to harmonise the hours of control for all parking across the county, ensuring the approach for paying for parking is consistent whilst continuing to allow Town and Parish Councils the option to fund free parking schemes, as is commonly done in other parts of the county.

“Income from parking charges is used to fund the management, enforcement and maintenance of the car parks. Should there be a surplus, this is used to support, transport, environmental, and local highways schemes. Having the parking charges paid for by car park customers helps ensure that the costs are not inadvertently paid for by non-users of the car park, through the use of other service area budgets.”

Here are a few interesting pieces of information from the Council and their website: (external website)

Information about the National Parking Platform (NPP):

https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/parking-roads-and-transport/parking/national-parking-platform/

https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/parking-roads-and-transport/parking/pay-for-parking-in-a-council-car-park/

https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/parking-roads-and-transport/parking/tell-us-about-a-parking-problem/

https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/parking-roads-and-transport/parking/find-a-council-car-park/wendover-library-car-park/