Bournemouth town centre is losing shoppers and losing businesses.
Surrounding retail parks and towns — Castlepoint, Ringwood, Wimborne & Lymington — are busy, and the difference most consistently cited by customers and traders is the cost and friction of parking.
Every business lost makes the next one harder to keep.
We are asking for a free first hour, open to everyone, in all council-operated town centre car parks including the Pavilion.
Since RingGo became the sole cashless provider across BHLive & BCP car parks in September 2025, this can be delivered as a tariff change within the existing system. No new infrastructure is required.
The Pavilion car park deserves particular attention. It is the only large level-access car park left in the town centre within easy reach of the shops, which makes it the car park older and disabled shoppers depend on. Its accessibility is a town centre asset and should be managed to serve that purpose.
We therefore ask that the free first hour at the Pavilion is set within a tariff structure that rewards short shopping trips, so that spaces turn over through the day and remain available to people coming into town to shop.
We recognise that BCP LIFE cardholders can already claim an additional free hour through RingGo. In practice that scheme reaches very few people: it is residents-only, it requires a paid session first, it depends on holding a card, linking two separate accounts and waiting 48 hours for activation, and awareness among the public is extremely low.
It does nothing to attract the regional shoppers Bournemouth has lost.
What we are asking for is simple enough to explain in one sentence and open to anyone who drives into town.
Publicity is essential to this petition, not an afterthought. A free hour nobody knows about changes nothing.
We ask that the offer is promoted with the same visibility and marketing effort the Council and its partners gave Parking Fines Trial, and that Bournemouth BID support is sought to install clear signage at the entrance to every town centre car park, so the offer is visible at the moment the decision to park is made.
This is not revenue the Council is giving away.
Outside the peak August period, occupancy in town centre car parks is low; a free first hour largely converts empty spaces into visits from people who are not paying today. Those visitors spend in shops, cafés and venues, generating business rates and supporting jobs.
Greater footfall through the day also means a busier, better-observed town centre, which speaks directly to the safety concerns raised repeatedly by residents and traders.
We ask the Council to introduce this as a twelve-month pilot, with August excluded if necessary, and to publish occupancy, revenue and business survey data at the end of the period so the effect can be judged on evidence.
This ePetition runs from 15/08/2026 to 26/09/2026.
5 people have signed this ePetition.