Knaresborough will pay price without better parking – Yorkshire Post Letters

AFTER an attempted trip to Knaresborough Market, I felt I had to express my dismay at the suggestion to pedestrianise the Market Place (The Yorkshire Post, July 25).

Since moving to Knaresborough 42 years ago, my family has shopped regularly in the town and enjoyed our weekly outing to the market.

After driving round twice with lots of other cars and finding no spare parking places and long queues at the car parks behind the bus station, my husband and I turned round and went to Lidl where the £27 spent would normally have been spent at Jack Fultons, other shops and the market.

As a blue badge holder, the Market Place is a very convenient place to park, and if the pedestrianisation takes place it means we will be shopping at Lidl, St James’ Park or the new Aldi when it opens (ample free parking). We shall be spoilt for choice.

Where will the lost parking spaces be moved to? Not everyone is fit enough to walk up from York Place car park and then carry full shopping bags back down.

Also the footpath from there is not wide enough to comply with ‘social distancing’.

The tourists mostly come in summer – what happens in winter when they don’t and the locals  don’t bother to shop local any more because of inadequate parking?

Will the council then wonder why there are more empty shops than there are now?  

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James Mitchinson