WILTSHIRE Council has come under fire for plans to introduce charges at St Stephen’s Place multi-storey car park, as part of its biggest ever parking review of towns throughout the county.

A review of possible changes to fees at all long and short-stay car parks includes a suggestion from the council to introduce charges to pay for “much needed” improvements to the free multi-storey car park in Trowbridge.

Colin Kay, president of the Trowbridge Chamber of Commerce, believes the council would make a “huge error” if it was to introduce parking charges there.

He said: “Introducing parking charges on the multi-storey car park would be ridiculous. It is massively important to the town and it serves the Civic Centre as well as the Leisure Park.

“Lots of people use it to park during the day, especially those who work in the town centre, so it would be a big blow for the workers as well as the businesses if they were to charge.

“The parking charges they introduced to Lovemead mean it is virtually empty most of the time and if they were to introduce charges to the multi-storey they will drive people out of there as well.

“This may only be a suggestion, but I think Wiltshire Council should give more control to the town council, which is something they have been asking for a long time.”

The multi-storey car park is run by the council under a covenant, which promises that, for the benefit and protection of Castle Place Shopping Centre, the council will not “levy any charge whatsoever in respect of the parking of motor vehicles”.

Trowbridge and Wiltshire Cllr Graham Payne said: “It would be totally against the covenant to put charges at the multi-storey.

“Wiltshire Council has not spent enough time maintaining it and they obviously don’t understand the importance of it to people in Trowbridge.”

The review of parking charges is now open for public comments, which will be included in a report for Wiltshire Council’s Cabinet to consider in March 2015.

The council says approved changes will then be implemented ‘as soon as possible’.

Wiltshire Council’s deputy leader John Thomson said: “A number of councillors have complained about the poor state of repair and the fact it needs to be cleaned more. Some people still seem to think that car parks are lavatories and that is a particular problem here.

“We can only afford to carry out the work if we have the money to pay for it. Maybe we can keep some free parking on some floors and have payment on others.

“I want to open up a discussion with the town council to see if we can vary the covenant so some element of payment could be introduced. I don’t want people moaning in the future that something should have been discussed but it wasn’t.”