THE five-month closure of Garrick House multi-storey car park was, in some quarters, expected to cause chaos and overcrowding – in reality it’s business as usual for Hereford’s city centre car parks.
The 400-space Hereford car park closed for refurbishment last Monday, however following a thorough investigation by the Hereford Times, we can exclusively reveal that the remaining facilities appear to be handling the excess parking just fine.
This may change if construction on the Urban Village forces the popular and low-cost Merton Meadow car park to close before the 600 spaces on the Old Livestock Development opens up.
But for now, at peak time in on a Thursday morning, only two city centre car park were at capacity: Merton Meadow and Bath Street, behind the Barrels pub.
Several smaller facilities were within 10 per cent of their capacity, but the majority had between eight and fifteen spaces free – with some, notably the council car parks south of the river on Wye Street and at the Leisure Pool less than half-full.
Councillor Graham Powell appears justified in his pre-closure assertion that the city was well-equipped to deal with the increased demand.
However the council have also opened a temporary 60-space car park this week to the north of the closed multi-storey, which should go some way to addressing the geographical imbalance created by closing one of the few parking facilities on that side of the city centre.
