Park & Ride site to open for evening Shrewsbury Town games

The council’s park and ride car park at Meole Brace is usually closed at night, but for the next three evening games it will be open until 11pm for fans to park for free.

The decision to open the car park was made after a number of fans received tickets from parking wardens after parking on a grass verges leading up to the closed park and ride gates during Shrewsbury Town’s recent clash against Crawley.

Council leader, Keith Barrow, said:

“We want to support the club in its push for promotion, which would be fantastic for the county as a whole, not just supporters of Shrewsbury Town. I know that attendances are generally lower at midweek matches so we wanted to do our bit to help get more fans to the ground to give the team as much support as possible at this important stage of the season.

“We came in for a bit of stick from some fans for giving parking tickets to people who parked on double yellow lines at the entrance to the park and ride site on Monday night. We are not backing down on that – people know they’re not allowed to park on double yellow lines – but it did highlight that some fans might not be going to the games because of difficulty parking. So we hope by opening Meole Brace Park and Ride car park for the remaining three evening matches of the season we can encourage some big attendances at the Greenhous Meadow.”

Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for parking and transport, Simon Jones, said:

“This is a gesture of goodwill for the remaining evening games this season, and we will need to talk to the football club about whether there is any need to open the car park for evening games in the future. We wouldn’t want to raise expectations that this is a permanent option, but we hope it will help fans for the remainder of this season.”