Two Barnstaple car parks to become one

At a cost of half a million pounds

Almost half a million pounds will be spent on a new car park access in Barnstaple in a bid to boost footfall to Barnstaple High Street.

The plans, approved by a full meeting of North Devon Council (NDC), will see Queen Street and Bear Street car parks merged into one and a new access built from Alexandra Road. The two existing access roads will be kept.

The £495,000 project will involve converting the existing lay-by on Alexandra Road into an extended slip road.

To pay for it, the council is going to take out a 40-year loan, which will cost £25,000 a year to service.

Officers say the new, bigger car park, with better access routes, should turn a profit in the long run. 

It already makes more money out of the two car parks each year than the cost of the work on the access road.

Currently, the Queen Street car park has 224 spaces and a pay and display income of £485,000 per year. Neighbouring Bear Street car park has 166 parking spaces that generate £138,000 a year. 

It’s thought that less than a third of Bear Street Car Park’s capacity is being used right now due to the difficulty drivers have accessing it. 

Officers believe the new, more accessible combined car park would encourage visitors to make better use of the spaces available in the area and generate an extra £91,000 in parking fees per year. 

Twenty spaces in the reformatted car park would be equipped with electric vehicle charging points.

Some councillors raised concerns about the wayt the council will finance the scheme. Councillor Daniel Turton (Conservative, Ilfracombe East) argued that increasing parking fees in Barnstaple at the same rate as has been proposed for North Devon’s coastal car parks would be a better way to pay for the works than through borrowing.

He added: “I do think you’re flogging a dead horse trying to spend all these millions on Barnstaple High Street. The asset in North Devon is the coastal communities, and if you want Barnstaple to thrive you’ve got to support the coastal towns and Barnstaple will naturally grow – you can’t force Barnstaple to grow.”

Councillor Caroline Leaver (Lib Dems, Newport) disagreed, saying: “This is a fantastic place. Let’s not be mealy-mouthed. Let’s not be small-minded and penny-pinching and parochial about this. 

“Let’s celebrate what’s fantastic about Barnstaple. It is our main town. It has a need to improve the visitor experience in terms of ease of actually getting into town and using the businesses.” 

Councillor Robbie Mack (Green Party, Barnstaple Central) said investing hundreds of thousands of pounds to increase car parking might not be “a good look” given the climate emergency and the council’s desire to reduce car usage.

It was originally anticipated that the new access road would be built using money from the Future High Streets Fund (FHSF), a government kitty aimed at rejuvenating the country’s struggling high streets. The council put forward a bid for £11 million worth of projects, including the new access road, renovations to The Pannier Market and Guildhall, the purchasing and development of properties on Boutport Street and improvements to Butchers Row and Cross Street.

In the end, the council received just over £6.5 million from the fund but decided to push ahead with all the projects regardless, bridging the remaining £4.4 million funding gap through borrowing.