CORNWALL and Callington Councillor, Andrew Long met with representatives from Cornwall Council’s Parking Services to raise concerns over the simplifying of charges across Cornwall and the stopping of the one hour free parking which was in place at Callington’s New Road car park.

Following the correspondence Cllr Long stated: ‘The new charges will finish at 4pm for all seven days. Whilst this is good news, I am still concerned regarding the Sunday charges and will be making further representations to the Cabinet member and officers who have been given delegated powers to implement these new charges.

‘Regarding the one hour charge, up until late 2018 the one hour payment was paid by the Co-Operative which operated at New Road until then. Cornwall Council officers were in discussion with the retailer that took over regarding transferring this agreement to them when they joined. However, for some reason this never happened and since then the council has effectively being paying that themselves. We need to get some agreement with the retailer to avoid the charges coming into operation.’

Cllr Long stated that he is working with the council to contact the retailer and resume the agreement.

A public consultation on the proposed parking tariffs will starts today (Thursday) and finishes on March 23. If the new charges are approved they would be implemented in May 2023.

Cllr Long is urging Callington residents to take part in the consultation and raise their concerns.

He said: ‘It is vitally important that we all take part in this consultation so we get a really strong response from Callington and the surrounding parishes.’