Royal Borough’s Cabinet approves exciting new resident parking discount scheme

An exciting new resident parking discount scheme, offering one hour’s free parking in six popular car parks, was approved by the Royal Borough’s Cabinet yesterday evening (Thursday, 16 December).

The scheme will allow residents to apply to get the discount at car parks in Alma Road and Alexandra Gardens in Windsor, Grove Road and West Street in Maidenhead, Horton Road in Datchet, and Meadow Lane in Eton.

The introduction of the resident parking discount scheme makes the Royal Borough one of the only local authorities in England to offer such a scheme. The council plans to be in a position to open applications from February 2022 and further details will be announced in the new year.

Residents will need to set up an online account with the RingGo cashless parking system to be registered on the scheme, and there will then be a simple application process to access the discount in the car parks they wish to use. The application only needs to be submitted once and will last for up to two years.

Once the application has been approved, residents can activate the discounted sessions in their selected car parks from April 2022, either through the RingGo app or via landline or mobile phone using the automated voice service.

Councillor David Cannon, Cabinet Member for Public Protection and Parking, said: “When the old resident discount scheme ended last year, we gave a commitment to explore ways to deliver an affordable and workable discounted parking scheme for residents, so this news will be much welcomed by the community.

“The RingGo system is already in place across the Royal Borough and many residents already have an account, so this discount permit system is a natural extension of a service residents are already familiar with and use locally.

“These six car parks were chosen because they’re mainly used by short stay users and proved popular when resident discounts were previously implemented. Free parking will continue to be offered for disabled users and those using electric vehicles.

“We will announce further details when the application process opens, and will offer extra help to those who do not have online access to set up their accounts and use the service. More than 75 per cent of car parking payments in Windsor and Maidenhead are already completed digitally, using a card payment or the RingGo app.”

This decision by Cabinet is subject to call in by Scrutiny.