Council workers parking outside of business 'could bankrupt me', says business owner

Parking surrouding Hill Street is affecting local businesses

The owner of Castle Café on Hill Street, Rochdale is worried that council workers who are choosing to park on the street outside of her business will cause her to close down.

Jan Walker, owner of Castle Cafe, said: “If it carries on I may have to close because I won’t have any customers. My customers have nowhere to park so they aren’t coming to the café.”

Parking in the area has been an issue for Jan since Number One Riverside was built. Without allocated parking, Jan believes that council workers won’t pay for parking and are using street parking instead.

She added: “It’s all because they want to save a few pounds on parking but at the end of the day this could bankrupt me. When they were using the Black Box there were parking spaces so it wasn’t a problem but now Number One Riverside doesn’t have any parking and they don’t want to pay for it.”

Jan recently posted a plea online and set up a petition to get the council's attention.

“The council have said they will meet me to discuss the issue. It is moving in the right direction but I just hope the council does something about it,” said Jan.

Jan would like to see the council apply a one or two hour parking restriction to stop council workers parking on the street all day.

Mark Widdup, Director of Economy and Environment at Rochdale Council, said: “Concerns about town centre workers using this area to park were raised with us informally earlier this week and will be brought to the attention of the Rochdale Township Committee. We understand the businesses’ frustrations and will be looking into possible options.”