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10 December 2008 Costly parking ‘driving shoppers away from the high street’

Steep parking charges and limited waiting times are deterring Christmas shoppers from visiting their local high street this winter, a leading business organisation has warned.

The Forum of Private Business (FPB), which represents 25,000 UK firms, is urging local councils to relax parking restrictions to help increase trade over the festive period. Doing so, the group said, would provide cash-hungry retailers with a much-needed boost in the current economic downturn.

‘Restrictions to trade at this important time of the year are last thing that struggling small retailers need,’ said the FPB's Chief Executive, Phil Orford.

‘Expensive parking charges and insufficient waiting times will only drive people away from our town centres and into the hands of large, often out-of-town chains, which can offer free parking.’

Figures released by the British Retail Consortium reveal that the total value of high street sales fell by 0.4% in November, when compared with the same period in 2007. The slump follows a fall of 0.1% in year-on-year sales in October, making it the first consecutive monthly decline in the survey’s 14-year history.