Banbury parking: Calls for one-hour free trial

Banbury's Old Town Association said council-run car parks had faced two increases in a year

There are calls for parking charges to be reduced in a town centre in a bid to increase footfall and help businesses.

Banbury's Old Town Association said council-run car parks had faced two increases in the past year and urged Cherwell District Council to reduce its prices and trial one-hour free parking.

Rustic Bean cafe closed on Monday blaming a drop in visitors, partly due to the cost of parking in the town.

The council said its car parks were "competitively priced".

Some shoppers said they avoided using the car parks because they were "much too expensive"

Chairman of Old Town Association, Barry Whitehouse, said: "A year or two ago it was £3.50 to park all day, it's now £5 a day, which is quite a hike."

He said the association had written to Cherwell District Council asking it to "reassess their parking and maybe reduce the parking charges to what they were several years ago", adding: "What would be wonderful is if they trialled your first hour free."

In a message to its customers, Rustic Bean said it permanently closed because "it's just not viable for us to stay open and, honestly, Banbury isn't the place to run a thriving business anymore".

It told the BBC the closure was down to rising costs for businesses and the drop in customers, which it blamed partly on the increased cost of parking.

Some shoppers also told the BBC parking in the town was "much too expensive" and avoided going there altogether, while others said they now opted to walk in rather than take the car.

The council said: "Council-run car parks in Cherwell district are competitively priced, with benchmarking carried out against neighbouring towns in the area, and we have worked to make sure that our car parks remain more affordable than those run by other providers in Banbury."

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