Bedford’s Mayor should remove parking charges in the town centre for four hours every weekday until the New Year, according to Bedford’s Conservative Deputy Leader.
Councillor Roger Rigby is calling on the Mayor to rescue Christmas for our town’s heroic traders and deliver them an early present, with swift action to encourage shoppers back into town, during what is usually one of the busiest times of the retail year.
Deputy Conservative Group Leader Cllr Roger Rigby commented: “This second lock-down has dealt Bedford’s retail businesses a heavy blow, coming so soon after the COVID restrictions earlier this year and with a huge switch to online shopping during the course of the pandemic.
“The Mayor must help make December busy and profitable, aiding in the revival of our hard pressed retailers and bringing shoppers back into Bedford.
“Whether it’s shopping in town or click and collecting, with so many wonderful entrepreneurial, boutique and established shops, Bedford must be the place to visit this Christmas.
“Bedford’s businesses need a trading boost and we have seen town centre footfall and parking revenues are already down. Businesses have worked hard to make the town centre COVID safe, and offering free car parking will bring them customers.
“Bedford Bid’s members’ survey asked for more free car parking long before COVID, but now it is absolutely vital for the survival of our town’s retailers. The Borough must gift our retailers and their customers’ free Christmas parking.”
Greens respond to local Conservatives’ call for free parking:
Green councillors support efforts to help local businesses thrive especially at this challenging time, but don’t agree that the best way to attract greater numbers of customers is to offer more free parking. Lucy Bywater said: “Free parking effectively incentivises more people to make even short journeys by car.
“Increased dominance of vehicles won’t make the town centre attractive or safer. Evidence from both Sustrans and the Government show that people overestimate how many potential customers travel by car, and evidence shows that cycle parking delivers five times higher retail spend than the same area of car parking.”
Lucy added that: “Temporary changes to the High Street have created less room for cyclists and white paint markings elsewhere have not made a difference.”
Ben Foley said: “Bedford has an excellent variety of independent businesses who deserve our custom. Current lack of footfall is due to the increasing attraction of shopping online while people are rightly cautious about venturing out, rather than the cost of parking. Various things encourage people into towns around Christmas.
“What will encourage people to visit the town centre will be factors like feeling safe, access to enough public toilets, good disabled access and proper safe routes for cyclists. There also needs to be more support for independent local businesses to trade online as well: we should be building on websites like lovebedford.co.uk/covid/”.
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