Shrewsbury BID lobbies to remove all evening parking charge proposals
Shrewsbury BID says it is committed to standing up for town businesses as it lobbies to remove all evening parking charge proposals for Shrewsbury.
Having successfully lobbied and negotiated key amendments to the original car parking proposals by Shropshire Council including free parking in Frankwell and Abbey Foregate on Sundays and Bank Holidays; retention of the pop and shop facility; the scrapping of evening charges in Frankwell, Abbey Foregate or St Julian’s Friars and introduction of the 8 hour charging cap in Abbey Foregate, Frankwell and Raven Meadows.
Seb Slater, Executive Director at the BID explained: “While progress has been made in our negotiations so far, we remain 100% committed to giving business a voice on these crucial town centre issues. We are extremely disappointed that there were last minute concessions to Ludlow regarding evening charging and this has undermined the consultation process and principle of the whole strategy. The result is an unbalanced and unfair strategy which penalises Shrewsbury.
“As a result, we are vehemently lobbying Shropshire Council for the total removal of the proposed evening on-street charges in Shrewsbury. Our members tell us that free parking on-street plays a vital part in the success of their night time economy.
Seb continued: “Our mission is to continue to deliver demonstrable benefits to our businesses building on what we have achieved this year, from cost saving and security initiatives which support town trading, through to staging innovative experiences like Wild Cop which attracted BBC News coverage, and delivering the No 1 Google ranked website for Shrewsbury with over 250,000 monthly visitors.
“We continue to work with the Police and Shropshire Council to address the anti-social behaviour issues we have in the town centre and are committed to supporting the retail and night economy sectors of the town through our Pubwatch and Shopwatch schemes.”
