West Oxfordshire District Council to make improvements to free car parks following review

West Oxfordshire District Council will be improving signage in its free car parks and making free long stay permanent in the Woolgate Car Park to help local workers.

Councillor Tim Sumner, Cabinet Member for Leisure and Major Projects, said, “Earlier this year we surveyed the use of our car parks to look at how we can improve parking across the district.

“As a result we will be improving signage to help people reach and use our car parks and make our successful trial of free long stay in Woolgate to support people working in Witney Town Centre permanent. 

“We will also do some more work to look at capacity in car parks in Woodstock and Burford to explore options to further improve parking in those towns.

“Alongside this work we are doing more maintenance where it is needed. A good example being the disabled bays in the Woolgate car park which will have repair works done shortly. 

“I would like to thank all the people who took part in our surveys to help us improve the already fantastic free parking offer we have here in West Oxfordshire. We would also like to reaffirm that we have no plans to charge for parking in our car parks.”

The Council owns 14 car parks across the district which are free for residents and visitors to use. Over 1100 residents responded to the council survey on car park usage which took place over the 2023. The survey was being used to better understand how the car parks are being used and update the data collected in 2016 when the council published its parking strategy.

The survey showed many car parks had a lot of capacity but that Hensington Road Car Park in Woodstock and Guildenford Car Park in Burford had higher than average use. Further studies will be done to look at options for those towns.

The Council has been trialling permitting free long stay in Zone G of the Woolgate Car Park since July 2022 to help people working locally be able to park during work. Having proven successful the change has now been made permanent.

The Council will also be maintaining its enforcement action to tackle people parking poorly or misusing disabled bays. This aims to help make the car parks accessible and inviting for all residents and visitors.