Does Paid Parking Really Drive People Away from Aberystwyth?

A recent story about the amount Ceredigion County Council is taking from parking charges on Aberystwyth promenade sparked the sort of reaction you would probably expect. People argued that charging for parking would push tourists away, reduce footfall and ultimately cost local businesses money.

Maybe it does. But I am not convinced we should simply accept that as fact without asking a few more questions.

I live locally, I shop in Aberystwyth and I know the town well. I also understand why people dislike paying for something that was previously free. Nobody gets particularly excited about putting their card into a parking machine. But there is a difference between people disliking a charge and that charge actually changing their behaviour.

Does paying for parking really stop people visiting?

The argument against parking charges is fairly straightforward. Make visiting somewhere more expensive or inconvenient and, theoretically, fewer people will visit. For someone making a quick trip into town, particularly when there are alternative places to shop with free parking, that additional cost might influence their decision.

There is also a cumulative effect. Parking might only cost a few pounds, but add that to fuel, coffee, lunch and whatever else a family spends during a day out and the total cost of visiting starts to climb. Local businesses are therefore perfectly entitled to worry about anything that creates another barrier between them and their customers.

But I would love to see the actual behavioural data.

Are tourists genuinely choosing between Aberystwyth and another destination because one charges for parking? When someone is deciding where to spend a weekend, are they comparing the promenade, beach, restaurants, shops and attractions, or filtering destinations based on whether parking costs £4?

I can understand free parking influencing which supermarket I visit. I am less convinced that it significantly changes where I choose to spend a holiday or day out.

Could people actually spend more?

There is another possibility which seems to get discussed far less.

If someone knows they are paying to park for several hours, could they actually make more of their visit? Instead of driving into town for one thing and leaving again, perhaps they have a coffee, walk along the promenade, browse a few shops and stay for lunch.

That does not mean parking charges automatically increase local spending either. It is simply another hypothesis.

And that is really the point. We should be careful about confusing what we think customers will do with what customers actually do.

Rather than debating it entirely through Facebook comments, it would be interesting to understand the numbers. Has footfall changed? Has average transaction value changed? Are people staying for longer or shorter periods? Have businesses noticed a measurable difference between this summer and previous years?

That research would tell us far more than assumptions from either side.

What can local businesses do about it?

Whatever your opinion of the parking charges, businesses have to operate in the environment that exists. That is where I think there is an opportunity to be a little more creative.

A coffee shop could offer £1 off when someone shows their promenade parking ticket. A retailer could offer a small discount above a certain spend. Several businesses could even work together on a simple “Park, Shop and Explore Aberystwyth” promotion, giving visitors offers around the town.

You are effectively reframing the parking charge.

Instead of someone thinking, “I’ve just spent £4 to park”, the message becomes, “My parking has effectively given me £4 worth of offers around Aberystwyth.”

Businesses could also lean into the idea of making a day of the visit. If someone has already parked for four hours, give them reasons to spend those four hours locally. Coffee in one business, lunch somewhere else, independent shops, the promenade, the castle, the museum and whatever else the town has to offer.

That requires businesses to market the destination as well as themselves.

The bigger opportunity

Aberystwyth businesses cannot control every council decision, the weather, the economy or how much it costs somebody to drive into town. They can control how attractive they make the experience once somebody arrives.

Perhaps parking charges will ultimately prove to have a negative impact. If the evidence shows that, then it should absolutely form part of the debate about future parking policy.

But before concluding that paid parking is killing the town or driving tourists away, I would like to know whether people are actually behaving that way.

And if people are still coming to Aberystwyth anyway, perhaps the more useful question for local businesses is not “How do we get rid of the parking charge?”

It is “How do we make sure somebody who has paid to park wants to stay, explore and spend?”