BUSINESS owners and residents in South Brent can celebrate after a lease was completed between district and parish councils that means a village centre car park will remain free to use.

After a drawn out process, the origins of which go back at least ten years, South Brent Parish Council and South Hams Council have ironed out the final issues and agreed a ten year lease on the Station Yard car park.

Making the announcement at Monday’s parish council meeting, clerk Julia Willoughby said there would be a rent review in 2021, but the current cost was £4,500 a year.

The arrangement will mean the parish council can continue to offer free parking in the car park, next to the site of South Brent’s former railway station.

The introduction of charges was threatened in 2012, when South Hams Council held a ’consultation’ on payment in free car parks across the district. Although it drew back from imposing charges in Station Yard, the following year the district council’s executive once more voted to look at generating revenue from the car park.

A series of public meetings were held attended by hundreds of people, and the verdict was unanimous: shoppers would be put off by charges and South Brent’s vibrant businesses would suffer. So the parish council entered discussions on leasing or purchasing the area from South Hams Council.

The originally quoted cost of £7,000 a year was reduced to £4,500 by South Hams in 2013, after it decided the rough area at the western end had no commercial value. And ever since, the parish council has battled to finalise the deal.

Chairman Greg Wall said: ’A couple of years ago there was a proposal by South Hams Council that Staion Yard should become paying. We consulted among traders and residents of the centre of the village, and they felt that if people had to pay, they wouldn’t come.

’So the parish council resolved to look at either buying or leasing the car park, to keep it free.

’Now we’ve entered into a 10 year lease. It can be ended at any point by either side, but our intention as a parish council is to maintain it, and if everything goes really very well we may even look at the purchasing option. But that is something that is very much in the future at this point.

’We’ve got a great range of shops here, the latest one to open is selling all kinds of equipment for walking on the moors, and we really want to encourage people in. If we do that by offering free parking, so much the better.

’It will also help to avoid even worse congestion as a result of on street parking, something that came up again at this week’s parish council meeting. We’ve said we are going to come up with a traffic and parking plan as part of the Parish Plan, and this is a key part of it.

’We’re very pleased to have reached this stage.’

The parish council agreed in principle to a lease in January 2014. After delays, a final decision was required by South Hams Council in January this year, and the lease was actually signed in March. But further delays meant it was not completed until October 12.