POOR parking options have been blamed on high prices and hard to find spaces in the results of the town’s Car Parking Survey.

One out of the 605 survey respondents described finding a free spot on a Marlborough street as like ‘gold dust’ and 59 per cent of long stay users described the service as ‘poor’.

A public survey was carried out over the summer and an independent study which tracked the number of spaces in the town occurred over four days in June.

At its lowest, just five per cent of spaces were vacant across 11 car parking sites measured.

The Car Parking Study was commissioned through the Marlborough Area Neighbourhood Plan.

The MANP chairman and Town Mayor, Councillor Mervyn Hall, said: “It’s clear that parking is a very real concern to local people.

"There’s no residential parking scheme, parking charges for workers are prohibitively high and as our town increasingly becomes more attractive for tourism, especially with the new Great West Way project, there’s a risk our visitors will have nowhere to park enabling them to spend money in our shops.

"This study confirms all of this. Those of us dealing with the Neighbourhood Plan are aware that land for parking needs to be identified to help solve some of these issues.”

The results will now be analysed by MANP who will assess how the Neighbourhood Plan could resolve some of the main findings. There will also be a public meeting on October 16 at 7pm in the Town Hall.

Just one per cent of people used public transport to get into the town, but 24 per cent of residents highlighted a lack of public transport for their decision to drive in. Wednesday, market day, saw full spaces climb to 88 per cent and other tested days include a Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. The meeting is free for all to attend.