Brakes put on free parking bid

The leader of South Holland District Council has said he doesn’t believe parking charges are keeping people away from Spalding and cited Springfields as an example

Lord Gary Porter was reacting to a call to make parking free by Coun Chris Brewis.

He told a meeting of South Holland District Council that making parking free could be “the kiss of life” for Spalding.

“South Holland’s largest town is Spalding and the health of Spalding affects the health of the entire district,” he said. “People in South Holland are telling me they’re going to Wisbech as the car parking, as it is in all of Fenland, is completely free.

“You only have to go into Wisbech to realise it has a vibrant centre with enormous amount of business health in it.

“We need some really good news that gives Spalding almost the kiss of life or CPR.

“When you’re increasing car parking charges, 75 per cent of what you’ve had before might be a good idea but 125 per cent of nothing might not be, so I’d like to get some good news and publicity out there.”

Lord Porter though responded by saying: “I’ll have to disagree about car parking charges.

“If you go to Springfields on the edge of town, that has massively more expensive car parking charges than anywhere in the town centre, those car parks are still full of people spending money.

“So I don’t think it’s the parking charges that are deterring people from spending the money.

“We need to come up with something that’s going to do more to make the town centre a destination rather than just a bunch of remote shops that don’t appear to be doing what the other shops near to them are doing.”

In response Coun Brewis said: “I was the one who voted against the shopping outlet as I felt it would damage the town.

“I’ve never set foot in it as it would go against my principles.”