Watch: Chichester shop owners issue ‘game-changing’ parking plea to council due to 'lack of footfall'

Steve Jenkinson, the owner of Vintro on 24 South Street, Chichester said: “At the moment, it'd be very hard to deny that things haven't slowed down significantly. I'm on one of the main four streets in the city and footfall certainly has declined considerably in recent months. I think a lot of people who have shops around here say the same thing.”

“In my store in particular you need to spend some time here and be comfortable, try clothes on, have a good rummage and all the rest of it. It's regularly the case where someone's looking at something that hasn't got time to stop and try it on because they're conscious that their parking is going to run out. It's mentioned a lot by customers.”

The vintage clothing shop owner believes one solution to increasing footfall would be to have a parking scheme in Chichester. These sorts of schemes are already being implemented in Bognor where you can get two hours of free parking at the cost of £3 for an entire year.

In Midhurst, there is also currently a parking scheme that sees the same two hours of parking without having to pay an initial fee. Steve added that: “there's lots of lots of ways that the parking could be improved and that would help businesses. If there was a city centre car park that was free, that’d make such a difference.”

Kelly Mitchell from Cherry Vintage also believes that offering free parking for the first two hours could help bring more people into the city and support local businesses. She said: "Parking charges have gone up, and they now charge until 8 p.m.

"This could put people off coming to us for a meal or to go shopping as they have to pay for parking. Having some sort of free parking could encourage more people to visit Chichester and spend time and money in the shops and restaurants. It’s already being used in other areas to increase footfall, so why not do it here.”

In response, Chichester District Council has said: “We currently do not have any plans to introduce any further periods of free parking other than those which we currently have in place in our car parks.

"A number of our car parks are already completely free of charge all year round or for part of the year, or have a free of charge period of parking in place. We review charges each year.”