Report comment

When my local council bent-over-backwards to facilitate another out-of-town retail park when tens of thousands of square feet of prime retail space empty within the town, I personally started a campaign to force the council to introduce 2 Hours Free Parking in our town centre.

They coughed and splurted out the usual diatribe about the cost and the cuts that would have to be made elsewhere so as to be able to do it, but I remained committed. IIRC I submitted some 20+ Freedom of Information requests, started a web site, aptly named 2hoursfreeparking,com and also a Facebook page.

It was time consuming but I stuck to my beliefs that when their planning committee gave consent to this new retail park, that at the same time the same council also gave their consent to lose revenue from parking fee's. Over a period of time I gathered photographic evidence and in conjunction with my local MP we also petitioned several thousand local people.

Surprisingly. many other retailers were not interested in this campaign and it goes without saying that not one single of the clones stores would even allow one of our petitions to be placed in their stores.

Alas, and after 2 years the council have now accepted that our town centre is falling to pieces and in May all car parks across the entire council controlled area with offer the first two hours free. In addition to this from June all car parks with be totally Free on Saturday's.

So, for any small independents out there that like us are hanging on by a thread, persistence pays off.