An Angus councillor says local authorities in Scotland could do worse than follow Angus’ lead and introduce free car parking.
Arbroath councillor Bob Spink was speaking after the Scottish Conservatives called on councils to suspend parking charges in January to encourage people back to the high streets.
With the severe weather over the Christmas period seeing many retailers suffer a hit to their sales, Tory transport spokesman Jackson Carlaw said the money lost in charges would be more than made up in increased sales as shoppers are encouraged to return to the high streets.
For nearly 15 years, car parking throughout Angus has been free, both on-street and in the county’s off-street long and short-stay car parks.
Mr Spink said people are delighted when they come in to one of the county’s car parks and are told by a local that they don’t need to pay.
He believes free parking would benefit local authorities elsewhere, stimulating town centre trade and therefore helping local businesses weather the current economic storm.
“It always makes me smile to see the look of surprise and delight on visitors’ faces as they are amazed that you don’t have to pay to park in Angus,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s any other local authority in the country that has this free car parking.
“It’s a benefit to people that work in the town, it’s a benefit to people that visit it’s all round much better.
“Other local authorities will argue that it’s a source of revenue for them, but we’ve managed to do without it, so why can’t they do without it?
“As far as I am aware, there is no intention from Angus Council to reintroduce parking charges.”
Although all Angus car parks are free of charge, all have time limits and regulations that have to be complied with. Anyone found contravening the regulations runs the risk of incurring a fixed penalty notice.
“We have time restrictions on some of the car parks but that’s to be expected as you can’t have cars parked all the time,” said Mr Spink.
“The fact that you can go anywhere you like and find a car parking space and leave your car for as long as you like in most cases is brilliant.
“If you have car parks available in the town centre, there is a lot to be said for making these car parks free. It encourages people to come to town centres whereas if you keep putting the charges up not only do you restrict people’s time that they can stay in the town centre, it also costs them more to come, which might be a deterrent.”