Plans to sell Trowbridge car park take step forward
Councillors voted this afternoon to formally transfer the freehold of St Stephen’s multi-storey car park to the owner of Castle Place Shopping Centre
Plans to sell the multi-storey car park in Trowbridge have taken a major step forward.
During a tense meeting of the council’s Cabinet this afternoon (Tuesday, October 7) Wiltshire Councillors voted to formally transfer the freehold of St Stephen’s multi-storey car park to the owner of Castle Place Shopping Centre.
The decisions taken today will still have to be ratified by the full council when it meets on October 21.
Whether any money will change hands in either direction remains a secret – the financial aspects of the deal, which were deemed commercially sensitive, were discussed behind closed doors.
In the meantime, the 443-space multi-storey – which closed this week for vital maintenance work to be carried out at a cost of £350,000 – will remain closed until January 6.
But to mitigate the impact on Trowbridge workers and shoppers, free parking will be offered at two Wiltshire Council-run car parks until the multi-storey reopens.
Fees are being waived at Court Street, which has 78 spaces, and Church Street, which has 35.
As previously reported, Wiltshire Council plans to sell the site for redevelopment after a recent structural report confirmed significant investment was necessary just to prolong its life for 10 years.
Although Wiltshire Council’s Trowbridge car parks only have a total of 339 spaces, the council insists it can accommodate the current usage of St Stephen’s.
The meeting heard that Trowbridge is the only town in Wiltshire that has a free public car park.
This is due to a 50-year-old legal covenant that exits between the owner of the car park – Wiltshire Council – and the owner of the shopping centre – Tahir Ali.
Over the decades, some Trowbridge residents have come to believe that the covenant afforded them free parking for ever. This, they were told at the meeting, is not the case.
The meeting heard that when the Liberal Democrat administration took control of Wiltshire Council following the May election, councillors were presented with a surveyors’ report, which set out serious structural issues at St Stephen’s.
“It said you need to do some emergency repairs or close the car park because it won’t get through the winter safely,” Cllr Helen Belcher, cabinet member for assets, told the meeting.
She said the council was faced with a range of choices:
“Closing would result in a boarded up building that became increasingly dangerous and we would be in breach of our obligation to the owner of the shopping centre – a costly liability,” said Cllr Belcher.
“Demolishing would remove the safety aspect, but wouldn’t address the requirement of the covenant. We would still need to provide 443 parking spaces at no charge, with again the legal costs as well as the cost of demolition.
“Demolishing and rebuilding the car park would mean we were still constrained by the covenant and not able to charge for parking in that space.
“So we identified that a way of resolving this was to transfer the covenant one way or the other: by us acquiring the shopping centre, assuming the owner was willing to negotiate with us, and we would still have the issues of demolition and reconstruction, or by disposing of the car park to the owner of the shopping centre.”
Cllr Mel Jacob, who is deputy leader of Wiltshire Council and also leader of Trowbridge Town Council, said: “It’s important to acknowledge that people have strong feelings.
“It is always difficult when people feel that something that is theirs is being taken away.
“The covenant has caused confusion. It has been presented in the past that people had the opportunity for free parking forever and that is not the case.
And Wiltshire Council leader Ian Thorn said: “Nobody wants to close a car park, whether free or paid for.
“The assessment of the experts is that it is 50 years old and is a very poor state of repair.”
But Cllr Chris Vaughan (Trowbridge Park), who has led a public campaign to preserve free parking for Trowbridge residents, said: “I do appreciate that you are trying to tackle difficult issues, but I am disappointed in our council in the way this has been handled. Most of discussion has happened behind closed doors.
“What I’m proposing is quite reasonable – that we find a percentage of what we save in maintenance and repairs to pay for some two-hour free parking in the central car parks, and permits for those who need them the most.”
However, Cllr Thorn said the mitigation was “reasonable, but others might say – if they live outside Trowbridge – remarkable. The last time that Wiltshire Council gave free parking was in relation to the novichock incident in Salisbury: a terrorist attack.”
After the meeting, Cllr Belcher said: “”We will now look to confirm a formal arrangement with the shopping centre owner.
“The multi-storey car park site has been a source of much speculation and uncertainty for years, but now that we have provided clear direction we hope any future plans for the site can bring many long-term benefits to the town and its residents.”