Free parking for Christmas
8:50am Friday 4th November 2011 in Your Town
SHOPPERS will be given an early Christmas present in the form of free parking in the run up to December 25.
The promotion, which starts later this month, means people will be able to park for free in Bolton for Thursday late-night shopping and every Sunday.
Free parking starts on Thursday, November 24 — the night of the Christmas lights switch-on — and will continue until Sunday, January 8, meaning people can also take advantage of post- Christmas sales.
Bolton Council leader Cllr Cliff Morris said: “People say the reason they go out of the town centre is for free parking.
“We are hoping that it will help the traders through this time and encourage people to come into the town centre. It is a big boost for shoppers.”
The promotion applies to all the council’s surface-level car parks and four multi-storey car parks and includes about 3,000 parking spaces.
The council has negotiated a deal with NCP and APCOA, who run the four multi-storeys in the town, and will subsidise the companies for some of their losses.
But council bosses believe the deal is “win-win” for traders, shoppers and NCP — traders will see increased profits, shoppers get free parking, and NCP will potentially find new customers, once people have seen the new multistoreys.
Cllr Morris said this was a “oneoff”
scheme and was being funded using cash already set aside in the council budget to promote the town centre. But the council will look at repeating the promotion if it is cost-effective.
Cllr Morris said: “Hopefully it will also introduce new customers to the new multi-storeys in Topp Way and Deane Road so it will benefit NCP.”
The Octagon multi-storey, which currently does not open on a Sunday, will open on Sundays during the promotion.
Shoppers can already park for free on a Sunday on-street and on the surface-level car parks, which will continue.
Traders welcomed the move last night. Crompton Place manager Malcolm Angus said: “To offer this service during the Christmas period is a massive boost to retailers in the current climate.”
The Market Place will also introduce its own free parking in the last week before Christmas.
Manager Rod Neasham said: “It will have a positive effect, we welcome it. Anything that can be done should be done to boost trade.”
However, Cllr John Walsh, leader of the Conservatives in Bolton, said the council’s parking promotion was a “token gesture” and said his group had been calling for free Christmas parking for the past few years.
He said: “On-street parking is free on a Sunday anyway and one night a week free parking will not turn the town centre around.
“The council could have been much bolder. We have been pushing this for some time.
“It is better than nothing, but the town centre needs a vital boost and this is hardly going to provide the kick-start it needs.”
