'Don't treat us like Shrewsbury': Market Drayton residents angry over parking changes
'Don't treat us like Shrewsbury' - that was the message from Market Drayton residents who want Shropshire Council to re-think changes to parking charges in their town.
Residents made the plea at a Market Drayton and Rural Areas Local Joint Committee held on Wednesday, where it emerged that only 37 people have responded to a consultation on Shropshire Council's car parking strategy, while more than 2,000 have signed a petition against them
At the meeting held in the Festival Drayton Centre, Shropshire councillor Steve Davenport and George Candler, director of place and enterprise for Shropshire Council, answered questions on the plans.
Mr Candler urged people to take part in the council's online survey as their has been a low level of responses from Market Drayton.
He said: "We currently have 37 responses from Market Drayton. I would urge people to click on the website and let their views be known."
Geoff Vernon, chairman of the Festival Drayton Centre, told councillors that his petition against the car parking charges had more than 2,100 signatures.
He said: "Removing long and short stay car parks is taking the choice away from people. What we have now works fine. All market towns are not the same and should not be treated the same.
"Each town needs to be looked at separately. We take this as a deliberate attack on the night time economy that is funding changes in Shrewsbury. You are not going to get a good feedback figure unless you do the survey in a clearer way and send letters to each resident."
Another resident said: "We are not here to subsidise Shrewsbury as we do not have the benefits of that town or the problems."
Mr Candler said: "We do understand that each market town is different but what we are trying to do is to make the charges more consistent."
Under the proposals Market Drayton’s only free car park in Newport Road would become chargeable and the 15-minute “pop and shop” scheme would finish.
Mr Candler said: "What prompted looking at making Newport Road chargeable was there are occasions where nearby leisure centre users said they could not park as there were no spaces.
"There are ways we can provide concessions or reimburse leisure centre users so the leisure centre is not negatively affected."
Councillor Roger Hughes, who represents Market Drayton West on Shropshire Council, said there were no parking issues at Newport Road car park anymore.
Councillor Davenport said Shropshire Council needs to raise money from the car parks to being them up to a good standard.
He said: "We have not had many positive responses from Market Drayton on the proposals. The biggest issue people have is making the Newport Road Car Park chargeable.
"As a free car park it is getting abused and we want to make it available for residents and tourists to use."
If the proposed changes are approved they would start to be implemented in Market Drayton in July and would 'go live' in November 2018.
People can take part in the consultation, which runs until October 14, at shropshire.gov.uk/parking-consultation
