WILTSHIRE Council is proposing a 15-minute grace period at council-owned car parks as part of a review to go before cabinet for approval next Tuesday.

The parking review was the largest ever carried out in the county and detailed changes to fees and the designation of long and short stay car parks, which then went out to public consultation for 12 weeks.

Deputy council leader John Thomson is proposing the 15-minute grace period.

The measure, which comes after communities secretary Eric Pickles announced plans for a 10-minute grace period, will see civil enforcement officers wait 15 minutes before issuing a ticket in a move to encourage more shoppers back to town centres.

“One of the things I will be taking to cabinet is offering a 15-minute grace period on all Wiltshire Council-owned car parks,” said Coun Thomson. “I must stress that this is not for on-street car parking.

“This grace period would allow people to get that extra bit of shopping and gives them extra time if they have misjudged how long it takes to get back to their car or they have been held up.

“Eric Pickles suggested a ten-minute grace period, but we are going for 15 minutes as we do things differently in Wiltshire.”

Coun Philip Whitehead, cabinet member for highways and transport, added: “There is nothing more frustrating than paying for three hours parking and then coming back five minutes late to find you’ve been given a ticket, so this should help prevent that scenario.”

As part of the car parking review, separate questionnaires were published for each of the 14 towns with council car parks, including a possible charging option for each.

More than 5,000 people and organisations responded to the consultation, with 67.4 per cent of respondents agreeing that the council should set parking charges on a car-park-by-car-park basis rather than a Wiltshire-wide approach.

While the majority of respondents supported the council offering the first hour of parking free and free parking after 4pm, they only did so where local communities are prepared to fund the scheme.

The consultation also found that 46.3 per cent of people thought the council should invest in new technologies rather than relying on traditional ticket machines and cash payments.

Council officers are now considering extending pay-by-phone usage and providing a better deal for users on transaction costs, while pay-on-exit and ANPR are also being considered.

“We have always had a fairly common sense approach to parking and we thought we should address it once and for all,” CounThomson said.

“The consultation has been evidence based and we have discussed every car park individually.”

In Chippenham, the council said usage data shows there is a car parking capacity issue in the town and while it is proposing a number of changes to help manage demand, the capacity problem will have to be considered as part of the wider review of the Chippenham Transport Strategy.

For full details of how the review effects each town go to http://cms.wiltshire.gov.uk