Ludlow Chamber of Commerce has confirmed that there will be a public protest on Castle Square next Tuesday evening against Shropshire Council’s plans to hike parking charges in Ludlow. Please come along and support the case for changes to parking charges that will damage our town centre. Shrewsbury has got concessions, so why shouldn’t Ludlow get them?
Details of the protest are here.
The morning after the protest, I will be at Shropshire Council cabinet arguing for changes to the proposed regime.
When Mayor Tim Gill and I met the portfolio holder for transport last Monday, we said we had four main priorities for changes:
1) Extension of parking charges on-street in the town centre until 8pm. This will damage Ludlow’s fragile night time economy.
2) Hiking of on-street parking charges in the town centre to £1.80 an hour. This is too high for a small market town 20 to 30 miles from anywhere.
3) Making the central car park at Castle Street long stay. It is currently short stay and that promotes turnover.
4) Banning market traders from parking their vans within half a mile from their stalls without paying £1.80 an hour. That will damage a thriving market that is already showing evidence of slowing.
We also raised many other issues, including the poor state of white lines on-street and in the car parks. We complained that proposals to create up to 60 extra spaces in the town by repainting white lines and bringing the Youth Centre car park into use at weekends had been ignored by Shropshire Council. We also complained about the state of the park and ride but we did not have time visit the site.
Join us on Tuesday. 6pm on Castle Square.