Call to drop parking charges on small business saturday

The Forum of Private Business (FPB), is renewing its call on councils to build on the success of the first Small Business Saturday UK by waiving parking charges for this year’s event on 6 December. The campaign hopes to build on the success of last year’s, which saw 40 local authorities answer the call to remove charges. The FPB has written to all local authorities to ask them to consider removing parking charges on the day in the spirit of the event to provide an added incentive to shoppers to hit their local high streets on the first shopping weekend in the run up to Christmas – a move that has a potential positive knock-on effect for other high street businesses, including salons. Commenting on the launch of the campaign, chief executive of the FPB, Phil Orford said: “As the cost of doing business continues to rise, it is more important than ever to support our small businesses. Last year local authorities responded enthusiastically to our call. Forty councils agreed to offer free parking and many created bespoke parking offers to help drive footfall on the day. Last year’s inaugural Small Business Saturday UK was extremely well received and over £460 million was spent in small businesses on the day.