WHILE hundreds of motorists scrambled for parking spaces at a Trowbridge retail park on Saturday, just 10 cars were found in a town centre car park.

Shoppers say they have been driven away from town centres because of increased car parking charges and are using retail parks such as the Spitfire Retail Park, off Bradley Road, which struggled to cope with demand on Saturday lunchtime.

The rush came a fortnight after a Wiltshire Council report claimed car parking charges do not have a direct impact on trade in town centres.

Staff at McDonald’s takeaway called the police after becoming concerned about the levels of traffic.

Some cars were being parked on pavements, while others blocked each other in and queues of traffic formed as people drove around to find a space on the 53,000 sq ft site, which features national chains such as B&M Bargains, Carpet Right, Matalan and Currys.

PC Jade Coupland, from Trowbridge Police, said: “We sent out a traffic officer to investigate after the traffic had come to a standstill.

“The officer reported that the traffic stretched as far as County Way.”

It was a very different picture at the 165-space Lovemead car park in Trowbridge town centre, which had just 10 cars parked in it minutes later.

Mike Williams, president of the Wessex Association of Chambers of Commerce, said that his members’ concerns were going to be presented to Wiltshire councillors in a special report ahead of a meeting on November 8, in which the full council will discuss the way forward for car parking charges in the county.

The meeting, which will be held at Salisbury City Hall from 10.30am, could be a turning point for campaigners who want to see more reasonable car parking charges.

Mr Williams said: “If the council had put up the charges by 10 or 20 per cent then they would probably have still achieved the same increase in revenue but instead we saw increases of up to 300 per cent, which is where the headache that is car parking charges began.

“Never mind all the statistics, you only have to look around at the car parks to see what is happening.”

The council has already made one small concession by offering one extra hour of parking free for readers of the council’s Your Wiltshire magazine, who can cut out a voucher from the latest issue and display it in their car window at any time from December 19-24.

Cllr Dick Tonge, cabinet member for highways, said: “There were plenty of car parking spaces at the multi-storey car park on Saturday which are all free of charge.

“Trowbridge is the only town to enjoy a facility like that and it is there for people to use.

“As for the reason people are shopping at the retail park, I would not want to speculate.”