Sedgemoor Chamber of Commerce welcomes the decision to defer new Sunday parking charges and urges businesses to stay engaged as a county wide parking policy is developed

Somerset Council had proposed bringing in Sunday parking charges in car parks which are currently free, to create a more consistent approach across the county. A public consultation on the plans revealed significant opposition to the proposal. The Council’s Climate and Place Scrutiny Committee then recommended that the charges were not implemented.

Councillors at Somerset Council’s Executive Committee have now agreed to listen to that feedback and defer any changes until a wider parking policy, setting out guiding principles for parking across Somerset, has been developed and approved.

The new policy will look at all elements of parking, including, amongst other things, the role and function of on street and off street parking in Somerset’s towns, simplified tariff structures, payment mechanisms and accessibility. There are currently different charging principles across around two hundred Council run car parks, and the system has not been reviewed since Somerset Council came into being in 2023. The aim is to create a comprehensive and integrated framework for managing parking that supports social, environmental and economic outcomes in Somerset’s towns.

We have listened to the concerns of residents and businesses in the affected areas, and the results of the consultation clearly show how strongly people feel about this.

There are significant inconsistencies in our approach to parking that do need to be considered now we are a single council. However, we need to look at the wider implications of any changes and work out what is best for the whole of Somerset.

We will now go away and develop a county-wide parking policy principles document that we anticipate will be considered initially by our Climate and Place Scrutiny Committee in January 2026.

Somerset Council’s Lead Member for Transport and Waste Services, Councillor Richard Wilkins

For many local business owners, the possibility of new Sunday parking charges has been a concern over the past year, particularly for town centre businesses who rely on weekend footfall. The decision to defer the rollout is therefore a positive step and shows that feedback from residents and businesses has been heard.

However, this does not mean that changes to parking will never be revisited. Somerset Council has been clear that it will now focus on developing a county wide parking policy, and Sunday charges could be reconsidered in that wider context once the principles are agreed.

Sedgemoor Chamber of Commerce will continue to monitor developments, keep members updated and feed business views into discussions where possible as Somerset Council’s parking policy takes shape.