Roxburgh car park, Sidmouth
Roxburgh car park, Sidmouth

East Devon District Council (EDDC) is to hold an extraordinary council meeting on Tuesday 22 March to consider a bespoke approach to car parking at Roxburgh car park in Sidmouth.

Following the recent decision by council members to introduce a new charging strategy for its car parks across the district, the council’s officers and administration have continued analysis of the charges and have proposed the re-designation of Roxburgh car park in Sidmouth. The re-designation of this car park as a “shoppers” car park would see users only being able to park for a maximum of two hours which would encourage a turnover of spaces. A tariff of 75p minimum payment (for 30 minutes parking) and £1.50 per hour will be proposed.

It is considered that this change will be of benefit to the residents and businesses of Sidmouth and provides an appropriate balance between the needs to service the leisure industry and the local needs of those living and operating businesses in the town.

Councillor Paul Arnott, East Devon District Council Leader said:

The last few months of finessing car park charges across East Devon has been intensely hard work. For more than a decade previous administrations ducked this issue, and when they then became the opposition with a duty to complete a charging review, they simply did not finish the work. Therefore, we needed to pick up the baton, and quickly, last December.

Cabinet had always intended to ensure that there was a shoppers' car park in Sidmouth at an hourly rate of £1.50 rather than £2, but in the short time we had before budget setting last month the detail was still being sense-checked. It had always been our intention for the Roxburgh to be designated at the lower rate and we had open discussions about how we could do this which we believe this proposal that will be discussed next week will deliver on.”

More information on the proposal that will be discussed at the extraordinary council meeting can be found by visiting the council website: Agenda for Council on Tuesday, 22nd March, 2022, 6.00 pm - East Devon