Attended the Wigan Diggers Festival this afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed it and afterwards returned to our car parked on the car park of the Grand Arcade (Millgate?) ... Anyway we returned to the mayhem of the new paying system - they photograph you licence plate as you drive in and you then have to enter it on the machine - and the realisation that our 5 hours supporting a Wigan Event had cost us a hefty £11 in parking.... shocked at this cost, and they wonder why people travel to out of town shopping parks!

£11 is appalling, Maxine. Grand Arcade - APCOA Parking

Seems the Grand Arcade's charges are the dearest in the town centre - www.wigan.gov.uk

I go to Liverpool city centre a lot and it costs more than there !

Good job you have lots of money Maxine.

i was over the water last week and a certain wirral seaside town unbelieveably had FREE PARKING ON THE FRONT NEAR THE OLD FORT.

N/C

This council is 'IS' a tory government. The UK government at a local level.
'Local Government'? Have you never heard of it?

Don't be thinking ward councillors are the local government!

If there were no parking fees Wigan would be rammed with cars all day, everyday.

Then you really would be moaning!

Stardelta "Wigan would be rammed with cars all day"
Is that going back to the days when Wigan was rammed with cars, Wigan was a thriving community all shops open and prosperous, people with money in their pockets spending it in the local shops and helping to support the local community??
Bring back those days I say i say.

I like a bit of nostalgia myself, you know, pop the old rose tints on and reminisce but........

When I think of the amount of traffic on the road today and how much car ownership has risen over the last 4 decades. Then imagine a shopping environment without out of town retail parks and online shopping facilities it brings me out in a cold sweat!!

People just don't want to shop in town centres anymore and its the same throughout the country. There are far easier, cheaper and more convenient options these days and people choose them in their droves. I am one of them myself. You can blame the council for that if you want but personally I blame society in general.

And......if there were no parking charges in the town centre the majority of spaces would be taken, all day, by the folk who either work in the town or commute by bus or train from the town center.

People complain about the cost of parking but no one is forcing them to park there.

Don't mind paying for parking but £11 for 5 hours was ridiculous. People parking on that carpark naturally wander through the shops attached to it therefore brings lots of potential customers in. Excess charges force people out to smaller cheaper carparks on the fringes of the town, either that or basically people say "stuff it" and got to out of town shops e.g Robin Park or dare I say .... Leigh ?

You people reject anarchists and laugh at Amish people!

This looks like a helpful website - Parkopedia

Parkopedia allows drivers to find the closest parking to their destination, tells them how much it will cost and whether the space is available.