Welcome to the Bury St Edmunds Chamber of Commerce

CURRENT ISSUES - Businesses must have a say on Park & Ride

The Chamber continues to lobby for a Park & Ride scheme in Bury St Edmunds. With the opening of the arc and the town’s wider catchment this is more important than ever.

The Park & Ride scheme in Ipswich is subsidised to the tune of £500,000 per annum and we have been told that a more modest scheme for Bury St Edmunds would be too costly to run.  However, Bury St Edmunds currently donates £400,000 per annum - raised  from on street parking charges in the town – to Suffolk County Council. We say this money, which comes out of the pockets of Bury residents and visitors, should be spent on a permanent Park & Ride scheme for Bury St Edmunds, not sent to Ipswich. 

Chamber Chairman Rick Wildridge says, “The Borough Council does sometimes provide temporary Park & Ride services.  But there has to be a full-time Park & Ride scheme so that everybody knows when and where it is running. I see a Park & Ride scheme as a safety-valve – we don’t want to wait until there’s complete gridlock.” 

Astonishingly, Cllr Guy McGregor, chairman of the Eastern Regional Transport Forum has stated, “Businesses should be careful when they are saying how council taxpayers’ money should be used. They, as businesses, are not paying council tax but business rates which go to the Treasury.” 

The Chamber strongly encourages Cllr McGregor to take a more holistic view.  It is local businesses, which this Chamber represents, that drive the economy and bring visitors into the town. To say that businesses should not express their views because they pay Business Rates to the Treasury is ridiculous. Every business owner and employee is a council tax payer. And the money raised in parking charges comes from visitors and shoppers.

Andrew Denny, Vice Chairman of the Chamber said, “It is incredible to suggest local businesses should not have a say on these issues.  I am confident that once Cllr McGregor has taken time to consider his comments more fully he will recognise this.”