Free Christmas parking in Kilmarnock town centre will return next month.
East Ayrshire Council’s Cabinet heard that the scheme put in place last year was successful and agreed to continue with the same arrangements that will see all on and off street parking free after 2pm throughout December in Kilmarnock.
Ayrshire Roads Alliance chief, Jane Corrie, gave some background on last year’s action. She said: “During this time manual vehicle counts and observations were undertaken which showed that both on and off street car parks were noticeably busier than usual with few free bays available.
“However, the desired turnover of spaces was also preserved. It’s not possible to determine whether this increased level of parking was attributed to the free parking offered or was simply down to the traditional pre-Christmas increase in retail activity.
“The financial impact of last year’s arrangement on parking income was also assessed and it was found to have resulted in a drop in income of approximately £30,000 compared with the previous month.
“This year that would be offset to some extent by the increased income from the charges now applied during Saturday mornings within the off street car parks.
“The opinion of businesses regarding last year’s arrangement was gathered through a survey. These show that for the most part participants would be keen to see a similar arrangement offered this year given that last year’s arrangement was successful in terms of providing cheaper parking whilst ensuring the turnover of spaces.”
SNP Councillor, Elaine Cowan, pointed out that there had previously been discussion around timetabling events to attract people into the town, beyond simply making car parking free.
She said: “I know we’ve spoken in the past about having some kind of timetable of events in the town.
“Obviously, this paper is to attract people into town during the festive period, so I think it’d be useful if we could get a progress update and where we are with that event timetable, because it’s not just about parking and cars it’s about encouraging people into the town to spend their time and to help with the local economy.”
She also suggested that more work could be done on getting information about car parking.
Cllr Cowan said: “I appreciate it’s only a snapshot, but it’s a very relatively low number of businesses that responded.
“We had a session with the corporate support team and we were discussing and looking at the council’s data and analytics strategy.
“I’m actually wondering if there’s maybe an opportunity to do something different next year, like assessing the car parking and car usage in the town by using some other data analytics.”
Assistant Chief Executive, Richard Grierson, said he would provide an update on the progress of an events timetable and speak to officials about ways to get a greater response from businesses.
The report was approved by Cabinet.