No more Sunday on-street parking charges in Bristol city centre

Bristol's new Mayor has implemented his first pledge – within an hour of being sworn in. Bristol is saying goodbye to Sunday charging for city centre on-street parking just three weeks after it was introduced.

Bristol Mayor George Ferguson, said: "I've heard the traffic management arguments, but I firmly believe in doing everything we can to keep Sunday special and already it is clear that it would only raise peanuts per week, while penalising people coming into the city centre for leisure and shopping. It is a straight-forward decision - on-street parking is free from this coming Sunday and on every Sunday until I can be persuaded otherwise.

"To make Sundays special I shall next year be looking at freeing parts of the city centre of traffic on the first Sunday of the month, taking inspiration from our twin city of Bordeaux where Mayor Alain Juppé has transformed the centre of Bordeaux starting with First Sundays. It has been received with great enthusiasm by the people of Bordeaux, and is an example as to how I intend that we learn from the best practice elsewhere."

The council agreed in November 2011 to charge £1 an hour for Sunday parking in the city centre shopping area, and restrict the maximum stay to one hour. The charge was introduced on October 28th 2012.

The charges were introduced for traffic management reasons and the income for the council was expected to be a few hundred pounds a week. The decision is expected to have little or no impact on services.