About 600 parking spaces near railway to disappear

A town will lose more than 500 parking spaces next to its railway station by the end of the week after one of the UK's biggest operators collapsed into administration.

Run by National Car Parks (NCP), three car parks on Station Road in Grantham are to close by 23:59 GMT on Friday, losing a total of 590 spaces.

The administrator, PwC, is looking to sell the business in a bid to pay creditors and said: "Unfortunately, 21 sites have been identified as being commercially unviable and would not form part in any sale."

South Kesteven District Council (SKDC) said spaces in its council-operated car parks "will enable motorists that are inconvenienced by the NCP closures to secure alternative parking".

The firm announced it fell into administration last week and PwC said demand for parking had not recovered to pre-Covid levels, pointing to "shifts in commuting and customer driving patterns".

The three 24-hour car parks in Grantham are among 20 other sites across the country that will close.

They were frequently used by commuters and offered a cashless payments system via the NCP app.

SKDC operates long-stay car parks in the town at Welham Street with 328 spaces, Wharf Road offering 260 spaces and Conduit Lane, which is the smallest containing 47 spaces.

Season tickets are also available for these car parks.

There are also other parking spaces and car parks managed by LNER, which extend along Station Road.

A spokesperson for SKDC said: "South Kesteven District Council is aware of the closure of NCP car parks in Grantham.

"However, we do not reach capacity in a number of our own council-operated car parking sites across the town."

A spokesperson for PwC said administrators were "working hard to stabilise the business and will be exploring a sale of all or parts of the company."

They the firm was "duty bound to act in the best interest of creditors" which is why the decision was made to close the sites.

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