The Welsh Liberal Democrat – Green Group has tabled a Motion calling on Powys County Council’s Independent/Conservative Cabinet to introduce a period of free parking on all of Powys’s council-run car parks.

The group is calling for the initial hour of parking on the car parks to be free of charge and the Motion will be debated and voted on at the council’s first on-line county council meeting at the end of July. The move follows the decision by the Cabinet member for Highways to not allow a free parking period across all council-run car parks.

Commenting on the Motion, which he is proposing, Group Leader Cllr James Gibson-Watt said, “Our market town economies have been devastated by the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions and need all the help they can get. The council is having to remove a lot of on-street one-hour limit parking to help ensure social distancing for pedestrians. These on-street spaces are used particularly by local people to do their town-centre shopping and other business.

"The Cabinet member for Highways’ decision to only allocate just a few one-hour free spaces in some car parks, equivalent to just half the lost on-street spaces in each town is just not adequate. I understand that for some of our towns this may be as little as six spaces. We believe that the first hour of parking should be free for all those using our car parks and we hope the wider council membership will agree.”