Further parking promotions on the cards as town centre business ‘have not felt the full benefit’ from current 11am free parking offer

Wrexham Council currently offer free parking after 11am in some of their town centre carparks – with a decision on if to extend the promotion yet to be made.

A parking promotion was brought in immediately at the start of the pandemic to support essential shopping and keyworkers, with that then extended to September 2020 and then a new ‘free after 11am’ promo brought in from October.

We asked Wrexham Council Leader Mark Pritchard about the future of such promotions, he said “We have had discussions over it and what we wanted to do, for obvious reasons, was see how we go forward with COVID-19,

“I think the businesses in the town have been affected dramatically during the pandemic, so politically we wanted to support them, and we wanted to give free parking after 11 o’clock for some time to help and support them and get people to come back into Wrexham.”

“It’s been very successful for obvious reasons. I don’t think the businesses have felt the full benefit from it yet, because the town really hasn’t opened up to its full capacity. I think it will open up now, the was the announcements on the 17th, people have got confidence to come back into the town, they’re coming in using the town more.

“So no decisions being made on it, we will have another political discussion on if there’s an extension, or how long that lasts for.”

“What I will say is this administration has always supported the town centre businesses, and will continue to do so.”

“I think to be fair to Cllr Terry Evans, the Lead Member of the Economy, I have lots of discussion with him on parking. We have introduced some short stay parking bays, which have been successful, but there is lots more to do.”

“I think it’s a trade off really, for every time we give away free parking we lose some money in difficult times, and I think it’s just getting the balance right.”

Cllr Pritchard effectively ruled out a return to full charging, indicating at least some kind of promotion would be offered, “I certainly wouldn’t consider it yet because I think it’s too early in the reopening up and the recovery of the town centre.”

Currently there is a free parking promotion in all council owned carparks apart from Tŷ Pawb, with free parking after 11am.