By Jason Lewis, Local Democracy Reporter

Free parking in Bitterne is to be restored, it's been announced. 

 

Labour council leaders revealed the U-turn during a debate on the administration’s budget proposals.

The move comes less than a year after the controversial charges were introduced across 17 council-owned sites.

From April last year, the free parking period was replaced by tariffs of 50 pence for an hour and £1 for two hours from 8am to 8pm.

Simon Letts, councillor responsible for finance, said the change was coming following discussions with Bitterne traders and supermarket giant Sainsbury’s.

He said: “We have two options.

“Option one, which is our preference, is we will lease a car park to Sainsbury’s so they can provide it free of charge for the Bitterne traders and visitors to the centre, or option two we will put one of our car parks back into the [free] one-and-a-half hour short trading principles.

“The reason we are doing that is because it is about fairness.

“Every other district centre has got a free car park operated by one or other of the supermarket businesses and Bitterne is unique that we control all the car parking there, which is why we think it is a special case and we’re actively looking at it.”

The senior councillor said one of the two options will be implemented over the next three months.

The scrapping of free parking also related to sites in Portswood, Shirley and Woolston.

In October last year, the opposition Conservative group called for the charges to be scrapped and for free parking periods to be reintroduced before Christmas.

A petition set up by traders in Bitterne opposing the charges was backed by 2,300 residents.

Data from the first six months of the new arrangements suggested there was no evidence that removing free parking in the city’s suburbs had a significant impact on footfall, according to a council report.