Visitors to Chorley town centre can benefit from free all day parking as a new park and ride service begins on Tuesday (24 October) to cope with increasing visitors.
The market town is bucking the national trend with visitor numbers remaining steady and on the main market day parts of the town centre have seen an increase in footfall.
The park and ride will be brought in as a trial to cope with extra demand while new car parks are created as part of a £17 million improvement programme.
Councillor Alistair Bradley, Leader of Chorley Council, said: “It’s a really exciting time for Chorley town centre as we are bringing in a cinema and big name retailers to Market Walk, which will complement the fantastic variety of independent traders that we already have here.
“We are also seeing more visitors coming to the Flat Iron market, which is now along the shopping streets on a Tuesday, and Saturdays are continuing to see high footfall.
“To accommodate these shoppers while we create new parking we will be running a free park and ride on Tuesdays and Saturdays to make it easy for people to park and stay in the town centre for longer.”
The free park and ride service will operate from Morrisons car park, on Brooke Street, and will drop people and pick them up from the Union Street stop outside Booths.
It will start at 9am on both days with buses every 15 minutes and the last bus leaving the town centre to return to the car park at 5.20pm.
“We are well on with plans to create more parking spaces within a very short walk of the shops because we know how important that is for visitors to our town centre,” said Councillor Bradley.
“We’ve recently opened up around 30 spaces near the Town Hall, we’ve just extended the Hollinshead Street car park and we are progressing with plans to extend the High Street car park on the site of the Royal Oak building.
“Not only are we now offering this park and ride service, which will provide free parking all day, we have created more free and cheaper parking across our town centre car parks too.
“We appreciate there will be some disruption while the work takes place and I’d encourage everyone to support our local businesses and shop in our town centre – it’s that support that will mean our town centre has a long term future.”
