High street shops enjoy huge sale spike after thieves destroy Welsh town's parking meters
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Version 0 of 1. A Welsh town is enjoying a huge spike in sales after all four central parking meters were destroyed. Retailers in Cardigan, a coastal town in Wales popular with tourists, have claimed profits spiked by as much as 50 per cent after thieves smashed the town’s four parking meters. The local council’s struggle to find the £22,500 needed for repairs is being greeted with delight by local shoppers and retailers. “It demonstrates what we’ve been saying for years: if you have lower parking fees, or even no fees, then people will come into town,” Martin Radley, current chairman of Cardigan Traders told the MailOnline. Mr Radley’s sentiments are echoed by the deputy executive of the British Independent Retailers Association Michael Wheedon, who said the “top issue” they hear from retailers is the rising cost of parking. “Parking tends to be treated as a bit of a cash cow by councils, who we understand are under cost pressures, but it is noticeable that footfall at out of town centres – where parking is free – is rising,” he told The Independent. “You do not have to be a rocket scientist to work out there might be a correlation between the two.” Mr Wheedon added: “The cardigan ‘experiment’, as we’ll call it, is further evidence of that.” Almost 1,000 high street shops disappeared across the country last year, three times the total in 2013. |