People who want to park at Central Baths but aren't intending to use the leisure centre will be asked to pay from next month.

Wolverhampton City Council is introducing pay and display charges in a bid to ease parking problems at the popular leisure centre - which has left Central Baths' customers struggling to park during peak periods.

The number of parking places available has been limited by motorists who take up spaces for long periods of time but don't actually use the leisure centre.

As a result, the city council is introducing pay and display facilities from Monday 2 September, 2013 - with full refunds available for visitors to Central Baths.

Councillor Elias Mattu, Wolverhampton City Council's Cabinet Member for Leisure and Communities, said: "We want to ensure that our customers don't have a problem when it comes to parking at Central Baths.

"We have therefore agreed to introduce a short stay, pay and display scheme, whereby people would pay to park at Central Baths and then be refunded when they use the facility.

"This would be similar to the scheme successfully operated by the nearby Asda supermarket, and means that we can continue to offer our customers free parking.

"People who aren't intending to use Central Baths would still be able to park there, but they will not receive a refund. We will also be introducing a time limit of 4 hours which will prevent people from parking there all day as is sometimes the case at present."

The charges will be 50p for up to an hour, £1 for up to 2 hours, £2 for up to 3 hours and £3.50 for up to 4 hours.

  • released: Wednesday 21 August, 2013