Parking charges changed following complaints

Parking charges in a town's suburb will not increase by as much as originally proposed after complaints from local businesses.

Swindon Borough Council had planned to make drivers pay £2.50 to park in Old Town for an hour, but that has changed to £1.70.

Kris Talikowski, from the Old Town Business Association, said there had been a "negative" response to the original price rise.

Councillor Chris Watts, cabinet member for the environment and transport, said: "We have listened to feedback. (Our) aim is to improve dwell time while ensuring that businesses and customers are not disadvantaged."

The council will make subsequent hours cheaper in a bid to boost the amount of time people spend shopping.

"(We) are proposing 16 additional free 20-minute pop-in spaces to complement the 32 spaces on Wood Street and in the Market Square car park," Watts added.

Talikowski said the original price rise had not been well received.

"I put the [original] pricing charges on to the community Facebook group. There were about 70 comments; all of them were negative about the changes.

"[The council] came back to us reducing the first hour rate, but the four-hour cap on short stay car park is still an issue," he added.

Charlotte Phipps, who runs The Flower Pot on Devizes Road, said she was in favour of the pop-in proposals.

"If we could have 30 minute lay-bys where people could stop, grab the bits they need and then carry on with their day, it would benefit Old Town hugely," she added.

Bookseller Alex Call said he understood why prices are increasing, but feared it would impact his business.

"People may spend less [because] the whole cost of going out is more expensive.

"Nobody wants an increase, but everything is going up, so it's no big surprise," Call said.

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