Anyone who drives in Knaresborough will be familiar with the problem of parking. 

Vehicles are often seen circling around Chapel Street and Fisher Street car parks waiting for a space to emerge, especially on market days and weekends.

The problem deters shoppers and annoys businesses, who say they are losing customers to nearby towns. The decision to convert 10 parking bays in Chapel Street Car Park to electric vehicle charging points about 18 months ago added to the difficulties.

The issue of parking came under the spotlight at this week’s Knaresborough & District Chamber meeting, at which Steve Brown, head of parking services at North Yorkshire Council, debated the subject with business owners.

Mr Brown said the council was in the process of harmonising parking arrangements across the county as part of a new local transport plan, but this would “take a while”. For example, Northallerton has free parking on Sundays, but other parts of the county don’t, which is a legacy of the former district councils overseeing car parks until they were abolished last year.

Councillor Matt Walker, a Liberal Democrat who represents Knaresborough West, said “a conversation needs to be had” on Sunday free parking and added that Harrogate Business Improvement District has supported such schemes in Harrogate.

But the main concern was lack of space. Jane Winn, who owns lingerie business Sheer Bliss, said her customers would be happy to pay if they could find a space but lack of options in Knaresborough meant planners should think about extending car parks upwards rather than outwards.

Conyngham Hall and York Place have the largest car parks but both are slightly out of the steep sided town centre and several business owners said less mobile visitors found the walk from these locations to the town centre difficult to navigate.

Much of the debate therefore focused on making better use of York Place, which Cllr Hannah Gostlow, a Liberal Democrat who represents Knaresborough East, suggested wasn’t being fully utilised. Mr Brown said the income figures for the car park backed up this view.

Here are some of the suggestion that were raised, which Mr Brown said he would take away and consider.

1 Turn York Place into a multi-storey car park

Harrogate has three multi-storey car parks, but Knaresborough doesn’t have any. With so little space in the town centre, there was widespread support for the idea that another level or two could be built at York Place, which currently has capacity for 240 vehicles.

2 Better signs for York Place Car Park

Several traders made the point that the sign for traffic heading into town from the direction of the A1 to York Place Car Park is too small and easy to miss. They suggested replacing it with a bigger sign so visitors unfamiliar with the town, who didn’t mind the walk, would not drive past and clog up the smaller town centre car parks. Hairdresser Kelly Teggin said: “People don’t know York Place is there so they end up driving around the town creating more pollution.”

3 Create trader permits

Mr Brown said one of the problems was the number of business owners taking up town centre parking spaces daily. He added the growing number of Air BnB properties had exacerbated this. The idea of creating trader permits, in which business owners would be allocated significantly discounted parking rates at the slightly more out of town York Place Car Park to free up space in the town centre streets, was mooted.

4 Redesign Chapel Street Car Park

Chamber executive member Peter Lacey said Chapel Street Car Park was “poorly designed” and simply redesigning the space could potentially create another 10 spaces. Many people agreed.

5 Paint white bays on High Street

Free two-hour disc zone parking is available on High Street. It was suggested painting white bays along the street would help by encouraging drivers to park closer to other vehicles rather than take up too much space.

6 Let all vehicles park in some of the electric vehicle bays

The sight of many of the 10 EV bays in Chapel Street Car Park empty has long annoyed traders who say they are losing customers because of the shortage of town centre parking available to non-EV vehicles. Mr Brown said he “acknowledged we have a problem with EV charging points” but added the council was “contractually obliged” to maintain them under the terms of the agreement signed by its predecessor, Harrogate Borough Council.