Streetlife

Brilliant news! now if we could just get free parking all year Bideford might take a little step to getting a bit  busier:)

yes even if they gave first hour or two free it would help such a lot.

And why is parking more expensive than South Molton, Torrington?  I am sure the high parking charges put people off coming into Bideford to shop.  They must go to Atlantic Village - free parking.  Or Morrisons.

We are now at the time of year when Torridge are finalising their Parking
charge policy to be effective from March next year. The current thinking is
to have no fundamental change from this year. The decision is likely to be
taken at the Community and Resources committee on 17th December.

Free Parking is not a real option - for two reasons:

a) The parking areas get filled early - leaving no room for newcomers.
b) The cost of providing car parks falls on the council tax payers - but there is
no scope to raise council tax sufficiently to meet such cost (due to the
Government imposed capping-regime - about £65,000 for next year in
terms of income for Torridge). The books must balance somehow!

Those intending to park on the FREE days should note carefully that there
is still a charge before 10.00 (ie between 08.00 and 10.00). Some people
got caught out last year!!

When the town gets choc-a-bloc full, there will still be the option to use the
other (NON-free) car parks (eg Clarence Wharf or Riverbank). The cheapest
is at the Cattle Market where all-day parking costs just a single pound all the
year round.

Valid points Alan,  perhaps a happy medium could be accomplished, by making the carparks free for 2 hours? That way people working in town would still have to pay parking and the car parks would have a steady turn over of new cars leaving spaces for new people.
  My concern is with free parking available at Atlantic Village with its new expansion happening soon, plus the new addition of a pharmacy in Asda, soon there will be no reason to come to Bideford at all, unless we make the town more shopper friendly.

At the risk of upsetting some people, why don't you take advantage of the many free places to park around the town that we already have.  Places where you can park free of charge for up to 4 hours!  I'm talking about alongside football ground (up to 2 hours), most of Chanters Road (4 hours), some of Park lane (1-2 hours I think) and all of these are only a short FLAT walk into the town centre.  I always use these if I'm going for any length of time and if I do need to just pop in to town, I certainly don't mind paying 30p for 30 minutes - I think that's a fair price.  It's nice that Bideford has this option of part-hours, I've never seen the option in Barnstaple where you can only pay for an hour or more.
Also I don't think Atlantic Village is a patch on Bideford and what it has to offer, for our family it is merely somewhere we can take our 3yr old to stretch her legs when the weather is too wet to go outside!