Parking incentives in bid to attract visitors back to Chichester

The news was shared during a virtual meeting of the district council’s cabinet on Tuesday (June 2) where a number of incentives were detailed to attract drivers as the lockdown eases.

The initial suggestion was only for NHS workers to be allowed to park free of charge but members agreed with advice from the overview & scrutiny committee that care workers should be included.

Money from car parks makes up a significant portion of the council’s income and the finances were hit hard when charges were suspended in March.

The incentives will come into play when charging returns on June 8.

There will be free parking at the Avenue De Chartres car park every Saturday and Sunday for three months, and customers who use the MiPermit app will get one hour of free parking when they pay for two hours – also for three months.

Martyn Bell, cabinet member for growth, regeneration & place, said: “It’s a difficult balance between the urgent need to start generating revenue from our car parks for our vital services and supporting the NHS, supporting our retail and other businesses in the city centre, keeping things in line with our green agenda – and very importantly there is a safety incentive in this as well for people to use MiPermit.”

Some members were surprised by the low take-up of the app, which amounted to just six per cent of the income before the lockdown.

They were told that more would be done to promote the app, which would help with social distancing as customers would not need to use parking machines.

A report to the cabinet said: “As social distancing measures will need to be in place for some time, each car park will be considered on a case by case basis to determine what measures need to be employed to assist with social distancing.

“Enhanced cleaning and sanitising of parking equipment will be undertaken and customers will be further encouraged to use [MiPermit], contactless payment or season tickets to pay for their parking.”

The situation will be reviewed in September.

A message from the Editor, Gary Shipton:

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news, I am asking you to please purchase a copy of our newspapers.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspapers.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

Stay safe, and best wishes.