Bedford Elections: Bedford's best days are yet to come says Conservative mayoral candidate

If elected, Tom Wootton, the Conservative Party’s mayoral candidate, has pledged to introduce four hours free parking in council-owned car parks “to help grow” Bedford borough’s economy.

“Bedford hasn’t prospered in the last four or five years,” Tom said.

“There are other places you can go to, like Hitchin and St Neots, that are prospering, they are bucking the trend.

“And they all have one thing in common, a council that’s gung ho and that’s going to fight for their area.

“You look at the town centre and you can see there is a problem, it needs a boost – so what can the council do?

“We’ll have four hours free parking, what a boost that would give to the town because suddenly everybody can come in and get a haircut, come for a coffee, or go to the opticians.

“The two hours free parking [scheme] has actually helped that part of town, so that was the model and [we’re] thinking let’s extend it to four hours free in all our multi-storeys,” he said.

Another pledge is to keep Bedford moving, but if more people are encouraged to drive to Bedford isn’t there going to be more traffic?

“It may or may not have an effect on traffic, we also want a traffic review because there are a number of traffic lights that work against each other,” he said.

“But remember these multi-storeys used to be full, so we’re not having anything that the traffic system hasn’t coped with before.

“Also these will mostly be shoppers that will just be after the rush hour, so it’s not as if I’m saying actually everybody’s going to come in at nine o’clock,” he said.

“Now four hours of free parking may or may not work,” Tom admitted.

“It’s far better [experimenting] than not doing anything and sitting there and saying the only town for miles around where you have to pay for parking is Bedford,” he said.

“Would it make a lot of traffic? We don’t think it would, but it’s something we’ve got to experiment with.

“I’d far rather have a few traffic problems than an empty town centre with tumbleweed blowing down it,” he said.

“In other areas councils have led, councils have been exciting, councils have been innovative.

“We can be the best town in the whole country,” he said.

“Bedford is a unique place with all its architecture, everything that’s pretty, everything that is lovely, and all these communities coming together.

“This is going to be a lovely town to be in, it just needs a different leadership. We really think Bedford’s best days are yet to come,” he said.

A list of all the candidates standing for Bedford mayor can be found here.