Forestside parking U-turn after staff hit out at proposed £5 a day charges

Lesley Forestside shopping centre in Belfast
-Credit: (Image: Justin Kernoghan/ Belfast Live)


Forestside shopping Centre has made a U-turn on a decision to charge staff £5 a day to use the car park.

Last week staff at the shopping centre in South Belfast were told that from Monday, November 4, they would no longer be able to receive a concessionary rate of £1.50 for parking their vehicles at the car park for more than six hours, with this being increased to £5.

They were told that a smaller car park across the road adjacent to the former Castlereagh Council building could be used for a rate of £1.50 a day.

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This would be similar to the customer car parking policy in place, however staff working at Forestside told Belfast Live that the rate would essentially only apply to them as they are the only ones who are using the car park for six hours or longer.

One staff member said: "The new car parking charges will hit us quite hard whatever happens because going to work will become significantly more expensive or take a much longer time for many people who would need to use public transport.

"It has upset quite a lot of people who are working here and we don't think that it is right that this is happening."

Belfast Live contacted Forestside about the concerns that staff had raised regarding the impact of the new parking charges on October 29, and received a replyon October 30 saying that based on feedback from staff the shopping centre had reversed its decision and staff parking will remain at £1.50 for over six hours.

A Lesley Forestside spokesperson said: "Feedback from the staff has been taken on board and for the foreseeable future existing car parking charges will be maintained at £1.50 per day for staff and not the £5 previously proposed.

"To further support the staff, we have secured off-site car parking of c.100 spaces, within a short walking distance of the centre, which we will be for the sole use of Forestside staff, free of charge.

"With the centre attracting in excess of 110,000 people a week, the objective remains to provide as much car spaces as possible to support all customers and retailers at the centre."

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