A PLEA to scrap car park charges in Cheshire East's towns over Christmas has been brought forward by the council's Tories.

Conservative leader Cllr Janet Clowes has proposed a motion for Wednesday's (December 16) full council meeting, which has been seconded by the group's deputy leader Cllr Stewart Gardiner.

The motion resolves the council to: "Support the cessation of car park charges on all Cheshire East Council-owned car parks that directly serve the borough's towns, market towns, and principal service centres for the period."

Currently, the authority designates Crewe and Macclesfield as principal service centres.

The notice of motion adds: "This action will provide the borough's town centre traders with an essential and welcome boost once the current lockdown ends, while also encouraging residents to shop local.

"Too many Cheshire East businesses are struggling to weather the Covid storm and if they fail, the potential associated loss of business rates, redundancies and rising demand and costs for council services must be an important consideration at what is normally the busiest time of year for town centre traders."

Conservative members have estimated the cost of the plan at £385,000, the amount of income parking generates over a four week period, with the proposal having an end date of January 17 next year.

To mitigate this loss, the group have added conditions to the pausing of charges, suggesting a 'free after 3pm' scheme from Monday to Saturday, which is in place in Trafford Borough in Greater Manchester.

The proposal is a formalised version of an idea suggested at Cheshire East Council's December Cabinet meeting, which was rejected by the ruling Labour-Independent coalition.

At the time, Independent deputy leader Cllr Craig Browne said that despite a large footfall decrease nationally, the borough's towns were all seeing better-than-average amounts of traffic.

The Alderley Edge representative also pointed out that Sandbach saw a 14 per cent drop, despite the fact it has free parking already and argued that it seemed that parking charges were "not the principal determinant to town centre recovery".

Cheshire East allows town and parish councils to allocate four days a year for their car parks to be free, which are usually near Christmas. Crewe Town Council nominated three of those days in the run-up to Christmas; Saturday, December 5, last Saturday, December 12 and this coming Saturday, December 19.

Cheshire East's full council meets online at 11am on Wednesday.