New parking charges at the Bennerley Viaduct Visitor Centre have prompted a lively debate among local residents.
Visitors using the car park, next to the recently opened visitor centre and café, are charged £1 for every hour of their stay.
Payments are made digitally using RingGo, which adds a 20p convenience fee. This means a one-hour stay costs £1.20, while two hours costs £2.20.
Drivers can also choose to pay an additional 15p for an expiry reminder and 15p for a booking confirmation text.
Signs at the site warn that motorists must pay for the full duration of their stay and could receive a £100 parking charge if they fail to comply with the conditions.
The lack of a cash or card-payment machine has attracted criticism online, particularly from people concerned about visitors who do not own a smartphone or feel comfortable using an app.
Some residents have also suggested that introducing charges could encourage motorists to park on surrounding roads instead.
However, others have argued that £1.20 for the first hour is a relatively modest amount for dedicated visitor parking and could help meet the cost of providing and maintaining the facilities.
The Friends of Bennerley Viaduct charity owns the car park and money raised from it will go towards the upkeep of the site.
The car park includes two accessible parking bays, although Blue Badge holders are not exempt from the charges.
Anyone intending to drive to the visitor centre may wish to download the RingGo app and create an account before travelling. The RingGo location number for the car park is 47340.
Access to Bennerley Viaduct itself remains free. The site can also be reached on foot or by bicycle using local paths and the Erewash Valley Trail.
People travelling by public transport can use Trentbarton’s Ilkeston Flyer or Two services to Bridge Street in Cotmanhay. Ilkeston railway station is approximately one mile from the viaduct.
The Visitor Centre is located off Shilo Way in Awsworth, with the postcode NG16 2BF.
One Comment
Um! Lol, why dose this not surprise me, clearly NG16 want to get in on the act, of the Bennerley Viaduct preservation project and no doubt will even attempt to lay claim to the whole idea in that it was theirs which it wasn’t, and isn’t, but it was the idea of a charity based well inside Ilkeston however then came the announcement that planning permission had been given no doubt by NG16 to build an industrial estate right next to the Bennerley preservation project then came the visitor canter that no one asked for. that I know of, and are now looking to charge people for parking that may use the centre that no one asked for but a question dose anyone know if the housing project right next door to Awsworth started yet and was the visitors centre actually part of it perhaps,