Closing market square car park will not help prosperity (From Salisbury Journal)

Closing market square car park will not help prosperity

10:01am Thursday 27th September 2012 in Salisbury Letters

EACH week I visit Salisbury city centre I see that another shop has closed, or read in the paper that another business is moving away.

Can’t the area board and Wiltshire Council see that we already have a decline in Salisbury?

And yet they still want to prohibit parking in the market square. I fail to see how this will bring prosperity to the city.

Every day the market square car park is full, people coming and going for short trips to the shops and banks; and it is often full in the evenings.

I am told there are more than 40,000 residents living between the park and ride sites and the city centre. These people do not wish to get in their cars and drive out of Salisbury to catch a bus into the centre.

Buses do not suit everyone and there is nothing like one’s own transport for senior citizens, those of us with health problems and those of us who are busy.

Salisbury has very high parking charges which already limit people’s visits to the city and yet the council is going to lose something like £160,000 a year by stopping the market square parking.

How are they going to make up this loss of revenue?

No doubt when the Maltings development has gone ahead we will lose even more parking spaces.

Madness.

Local people who can park in the centre regularly will bring in more money than an occasional load of tourists. Apart from this, they should not be denied the opportunity to park in the centre of their own city.

JEANNE RUSHBY, Salisbury