Salisbury's five park & ride sites at Beehive, Wilton, Britford, London Road and Petersfinger will temporarily close due to the significantly reduced usage recently, following the government’s message for people to stay at home.
Wiltshire Council also announced they've abolished parking charges in their car parks and were relaxing parking restrictions.
Cllr Philip Whitehead, Wiltshire Council Leader, said: “With stay at home restrictions in place and footfall significantly reduced, we feel this is a sensible decision.
“People can use on and off-street parking bays without time restriction or charge. This includes any council car parks, on-street paid for parking bays and permit bays in controlled parking zones.
“We look forward to getting the sites back up and running as soon as possible after travel restrictions are lifted and life in Salisbury is able to return to normal.”
The decision to close the sites temporarily coincides with Salisbury Reds reducing the frequency of their bus services in the city. Housing estates close to the park & ride sites will continue to be served by buses once per hour.
Andrew Wickham, Salisbury Reds managing director, added: “These are unprecedented times, and this drop in use of park and ride facilities is to be expected. In view of this, we support Wiltshire Council’s decision to temporarily close the service.
“Our team is working very hard to provide essential bus travel for key workers here in Salisbury. This latest move allows us to fully focus our resources on providing bus services elsewhere in the city - so that NHS staff and others can travel to-and-from work via sustainable transport. We look forward to re-introducing Salisbury’s park-and-ride services in the future.”
In partnership with VisitWiltshire, Salisbury BID co-fund the Visit Salisbury website to promote the city to visitors. The Visit Salisbury website has a full events calendar for Salisbury.
