The organiser of a petition calling on the council to buy Demmark Street Car Park so it could be reopened has expressed his happiness that the deal is set to go ahead, and that he hoped it would help bring shoppers back to Wokingham.
At a meeting of Wokingham Borough Council on Thursday, January 23, Daniel Hinton – Wokingham Town Council Conservative group leader – and party colleagues handed the petition over to the borough mayor, Cllr Bill Soane.
Cllr Hinton said that 4,123 people had signed – its aim was to encourage the council and the landowner to find a solution to keep the Euro Car Parks section of the popular Wokingham car park open as “it was a necessary part of the town’s infrastructure”.
The car park was closed on Monday, August 26 by landlord Lunar Office Sarl, after a planning application to turn the site into houses was rejected.
At the time, he had said: “I have to thank residents for signing but also local businesses who have, for more than three months, been encouraging people to sign. Without them, we wouldn’t have had anywhere near as many signatures.”
And Cllr Hinton was pleased that a solution had now been found, and the Euro Car Park section will soon be reopened as a Wokingham Borough Council-owned car park.
“This is amazing news and I’m really happy to have been involved in putting the voices of the residents in Wokingham to the council,” he told The Wokingham Paper on learning of the news of the council’s purchase.
“Thanks has to go to everyone who signed the petition and my Conservative colleagues who helped me gain signatures around town.
“Mostly a huge thank you to the local businesses in Denmark Street who helped get signatures for over three months – I hope that they now get the business back that they have lost.”
