Calls have been made to continue the postponement of the parking charges in the west end of the city to help the local businesses as they recover from the coronavirus crisis.
Byres Road and the Lanes Business Improvement District (BID) are lobbying Glasgow City Council to maintain free parking as shops prepare to reopen on Monday (June 29) to give its around 235 member businesses in the area time to recover.
As well as to give the public the confidence to return to the area.
John Turner, Chair of the BID and co-owner of Janet & John in Cresswell Lane, said: "The BID believes that it is going to take many months for footfall and sales to recover, and it will be especially vital that local businesses are supported during the run up to Christmas.
"Without a successful Christmas trading period, many businesses will simply not survive. Our suggestion would be that parking charges should remain suspended until the end of January 2021.
"This will be especially important if the Council goes through with its plans to widen the pavements along the length of Byres Road by removing the current on-street parking spaces, as they have done already in parts of the city centre."
BID are also proposing an alternative to the suspension of parking charges of setting metered spaces and Council-run car parks at £1 per hour, limited to a maximum stay of 3 or 4 hours.
Doing so, they feel would give visitors ample time to shop, and perhaps have a meal and drinks at one of the west end’s many well-known food and drink establishments.
“We recognise that the public should be encouraged to use alternative means of travel to and from the area, but there needs to be a recognition in these extraordinary times that many people are going to be unable to, or nervous about, using public transport while the risk of contracting the virus remains high and that this will increase car use by those that live outwith the West End", John Turner added.
