Mayor's View: Free parking for Peterborough in time for this summer
“ I set aside money in my budget to make it happen”
Free parking kicks off next week in Peterborough in time for the summer, writes Combined Authority Mayor Paul Bristow. It’s my pledge delivered. Four council car parks, Bishops Road, Car Haven, Riverside and Pleasure Fair Meadow, will now be free after 3pm, Monday to Friday. It’s a shot in the arm our city centre needs, and it comes at a good time. Summer means holidays and people looking for things to do locally. It brings people out into the city, and free parking now offers a bigger incentive to do that. Tied in with our work on the Local Visitor Economy Partnership to boost tourism, I want to make Peterborough a more attractive place to spend a day, and evening out, or even a weekend. The summer holidays also mean families with more time to entertain young people. From a swim at the Lido, to seeing the Lego exhibition at the Cathedral or grabbing dinner in the city centre afterwards, free parking can help turn afternoon out of the house into a proper trip. It will run as a time-limited trial, but anything that brings more people into the city centre is good for the health of our high street, its businesses, jobs and our local economy. Free parking is one more step towards my plans to regenerate the city. Alongside this, we have agreed with partners to form the Peterborough City Centre Growth Board. I will be part of a new board that brings together local and national organisations to accelerate regeneration, attract investment and unlock the city’s full potential. This builds on our major investment already under way, including the Station Quarter programme, and the continued growth of ARU Peterborough, which are both big steps towards a new era of growth and opportunity. I made the pledge for free parking in my manifesto, and I set aside money in my budget to make it happen. We will see how the trial goes but I would encourage as many of you as possible, especially if you haven’t been into the centre for a while, to take advantage of free parking this summer and explore what our city has to offer. ■ Another piece of news that hit the headlines last week was that the Government is to lower the national bus fare cap to £2 from £3 from January. This is welcome news for our residents, as it makes buses even more accessible and affordable. Government was wrong to increase the cap from £2 to £3 back in January 2025, as I made clear at the time, but I’m pleased they’ve changed course. Hopefully this move will drive up passenger numbers. We’ve already gone further by funding our Tiger Pass, and this lower national cap will help us to secure its future for young people across our region. But this is also the second change to the cap in as many years. We now need Government to give us longer-term certainty, so we can plan our own local support for buses with confidence.
