Car park charging times across the district are set to be reduced following a decision made by Dover District Council’s cabinet today.

Instead of charging 9am-6pm, car parks will knock off an hour and charge until 5pm for both on and off street parking.

A review of charging times has been carried out adding to the decision in January to freeze parking charging across the district for the next financial year.

The decision is subject to legal processes, including a three week consultation period.

Subject to this process, the new charging period would be introduced in two stages.

The first stage would be to introduce this to DDC owned off-street car parks, which could be implemented by June.

The second stage would be to introduce this for on-street parking, which would also need to be agreed by Kent County Council through the Dover Joint Transportation Board, and could be introduced by early August.

Roger Walton, DDC director of environment and corporate assets said: “We are very pleased to be able to take this initiative forward to reduce car parking charging times.

“We continue to work to support local businesses and encourage people to shop locally. We already have a number of free car parks, a low cost car park in each of our three towns, and our parking charges remain among the lowest in East Kent.”