{"id":121574,"date":"2025-05-22T04:10:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-22T04:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/121574\/"},"modified":"2025-05-22T04:10:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T04:10:12","slug":"kingswood-cafe-offers-to-pay-for-customers-parking-after-charges-introduced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/121574\/","title":{"rendered":"Kingswood caf\u00e9 offers to pay for customers’ parking after charges introduced"},"content":{"rendered":"

The move comes in response to concerns that new parking fees could drive footfall away from local high streetsMarket Caf\u00e9 Lounge in Kingswood<\/p>\n

A Kingswood caf\u00e9 has offered to refund customers’ parking after new charges came into force at council-run car parks this week.<\/p>\n

The Market Caf\u00e9 Lounge said it would refund customers 70p – the cost of one hour’s parking – if they spend \u00a35 or more at the eatery, located in Kingswood<\/a> Indoor Market on Regent Street.<\/p>\n

Taking to its Facebook<\/a> page on Sunday (May 18), the caf\u00e9 owners said they were “sad to hear” that some locals had said they would now be travelling to nearby retail parks with free parking – rather than visiting Kingswood – and that they wanted to make it “a little easier” for people who wanted to visit Kingswood high street.<\/p>\n

Car parking charges came into effect at 22 council-owned car parks<\/a> across South Gloucestershire<\/a> on Monday (May 19). There are five Kingswood car parks affected – Bank Road, Boultons Road, Cecil Road, South Road and Kings Chase Shopping Centre.<\/p>\n

Inside the cafe<\/p>\n

The charges apply between 8am and 6pm, Mondays to Saturdays, with parking remaining free on Sundays and Bank Holidays.<\/p>\n

South Gloucestershire Council<\/a> has said that at least ten per cent of spaces in short-stay car parks will remain free for 30-minute stays – motorists will then be charged 70p for the first hour in short-stay car parks.<\/p>\n

Sign up to receive daily news updates and breaking news alerts straight to your inbox for free here<\/a><\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Parking in long-stay car parks – such as Boultons Road in Kingswood – will cost \u00a33 for the first four hours. Disabled Blue Badge holders will be able to park in any space for free, up to four hours.<\/p>\n

In its Facebook post the caf\u00e9 said: “We need your support! Like many local businesses, we were surprised to see parking charges introduced in our area before the planned town centre improvements have happened.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Market Caf\u00e9 Lounge<\/p>\n

“The hope was always to make our high street more vibrant and welcoming to attract people back to the town centre \u2014 we have some brilliant independent shops, cafes and service providers.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019ve noticed some people on social media saying they\u2019ll head to retail parks instead now, which is really sad to hear. We love our town and the community we\u2019re part of \u2014 and we\u2019d love for more people to come and discover what makes it special.<\/p>\n

“To make it a little easier, we\u2019ve decided to refund 70p (the cost of 1 hour\u2019s parking in Cecil Road or Bank Road car parks) when you spend \u00a35 or more with us in the cafe.<\/p>\n

“We love being part of the Indoor Market, we have such lovely, loyal customers and we don\u2019t want to lose any of you – what we want is for more people to realise that there are some real gems of businesses and people in our community. Let\u2019s keep our high street thriving, together.”<\/p>\n

South Gloucestershire Council said it needed to introduce the parking charges to help the local authority balance its budget and be able to afford other essential services in the future.<\/p>\n

Speaking about the scheme previously Cllr Sean Rhodes, cabinet member for communities and local place, said: “The scheme we are introducing is simple and relatively cheap compared to neighbouring authorities.<\/p>\n

“It doesn\u2019t apply to all car parks, but where it does apply, the money we bring in will help protect essential services into the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve no doubt there will be a period of adjustment for some drivers, but I expect that most car owners already have several parking apps on their smartphones and are used to paying for parking almost everywhere they go.”<\/p>\n

Click here to join our WhatsApp group<\/a>Privacy Notice<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The move comes in response to concerns that new parking fees could drive footfall away from local high…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,748,393,4884,19406,1232,10299,10302,9731,16,15,961],"class_list":{"0":"post-121574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-kingswood","13":"tag-money","14":"tag-south-gloucestershire","15":"tag-south-gloucestershire-council","16":"tag-traffic-travel","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-your-money"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114549530577177860","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}