SALISBURY has a new city ranger to patrol the streets and support businesses across the city.

Richard Sanders can be seen out in his uniform and his job is to resolve issues, offer advice and support companies throughout Salisbury.

He has been employed by the Salisbury Business Improvement District (BID), which celebrated its four-month anniversary this week.

Last year the businesses of Salisbury voted to create a BID, which is one of 200 in the country and aims to increase footfall in the city.

It has already managed to bring free parking to Salisbury at Culver Street car park from 3pm Monday to Saturday and all day Sunday.

Steve Godwin, the BID’s afternoon and evening manager, said: “We are trying to bring together all of the groups and businesses of Salisbury.

“Our first few months have been really successful. We are particularly proud of the work we did to make Culver Street car park free after 3pm.”

The BID team works in conjunction with Wiltshire Council but is completely funded by the businesses in the city that are trying to increase footfall.

They have just installed cameras at the entrance to the city centre which tries to track the number of people that enter Salisbury every day.

Mr Goodwin added: “It is important to actually know how many people are in the city, often businesses will say that the city centre is busy or quiet but with the cameras we will have definitive figures.

“In addition we can let firms know when the peak times of day are in the city centre.”

Upcoming events for the BID team include Purple Flag Week and the Christmas Market.

“Not a lot of people know that we run the Purple Flag Week, it is really a celebration of the fact we are a safe night-time city,” said Mr Goodwin.

It takes place at the end of September with events planned across the city.