A CALL has been made for special parking provisions to be introduced for elderly people over the age of 75 to make Skipton's town centre facilities more accessible.

Edric Seal, of Pasture Close, Skipton, who is a tutor with the University of the Third Age, which specialises in education and entertainment for the retired, has called on local councillors to extend parking provisions for the elderly in Skipton after receiving numerous complaints from the elderly pupils in his classes.

Mr Seal, who is himself retired, took it upon himself to be spokesman for these mainly over 75-year-olds at Craven District Council's full meeting of the council recently.

He told members that the use of the town hall car park by elderly Skipton residents with limited stay parking permits had been greatly appreciated. These allowed holders to park for a maximum of three hours.

"It has allowed us to park and walk the very short distance to the shops and other local amenities such as the library, town hall and banks etc."

However, he added this benefit was limited as these permits were only valid in the town hall car park between the months of November to March.

During other periods, the pensioners had to endure the "lengthy walk" from the Coach Street and Cavendish car parks where the permits were valid.

He said: "We are not disabled as such and therefore do not qualify for a disabled orange badge.

"However, our hips and knee joints creak under the strain, some of us have recovered from strokes and heart attacks so we do need our cars to help us into town."

Mr Seal said more compassion needed to be shown to elderly residents and he asked councillors to allow the over 75s to continue to park behind the town hall throughout the year.

He added: "Surely, no one would complain that these senior of all residents are being given such favours and as for loss of car parking revenue it would make little difference.

"Such a scheme would be quite workable, perhaps with a different coloured permit."

Mr Seal continued: "It is quite unfortunate that it is these people who have to use their cars to get around town, that have to park in the very furthest extremities in Coach Street car park and have to walk all the way up the High Street."

Coun Shelagh Marshall responded by saying she would refer his comments to the working group, which is looking into car parking in the town.

She added she also got numerous complaints from the elderly who could not walk very far because of ailments such as arthritis.

Coun Robert Heseltine said he was concerned about the infrequent amount of times the car park working group had met since it was formed and hoped these ideas would be looked into.

Former district councillor Eric Jacquin also participated in the meeting. He raised concerns over the maintenance of the car parks in Skipton.

He said the car parks in the town had been part of a three year programme of refurbishment, but the problem now was that the first ones to be refurbished were showing signs of "distress".

He said he would like the working group to be aware of the problem and also act to maintain the surface.

It was agreed that all matters should be looked into by the council's car park working group.

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