THE deputy leader of Wiltshire Council has disputed claims the authority will raise car parking fees to £9 a day in Salisbury – suggesting the proposal is just one of a range of options... despite putting no other proposal on the table.

Cllr John Thomson said in a letter to the Journal members want to listen to the views of the public before making any final decision.

The parking consultation is due to run for 12 weeks, with members of the public asked to visit consult.wiltshire.gov.uk to give their opinions.

Steve Godwin from the Salisbury Business Improvement District (BID) says people are able to put forward ideas on how they would fund any cut in the price of parking charges in the city.

He said: “This consultation seems a genuine desire by Wiltshire Council to seek the views of businesses and local people.

“It is an opportunity for Salisbury to carefully consider its options and to constructively voice its response.”

Cllr Sven Hocking accused Tom Corbin of hypocrisy for his attack on council in last week’s Journal despite backing previous plans to raise the price of long-term parking in the city – albeit with a substantial cut to the price of short-stay parking.

He said: “We should be trying to pull tourists and shoppers into the city, not scare them away and I fear a considerable number of the snails that may have considered coming to Salisbury to do their Christmas spend will now have slunk off to Bath and Winchester.

“While pretty much everybody in the city is in agreement that the costs of parking are, and have been detrimentally too high, it should be incumbent on our councillors to promote the city positively, not run the place down in an attempt to score cheap political points.”