A £500K grant to fund more spaces in car park

A £500k grant could solve months of traffic chaos caused by an overflowing car park in Fitzwilliam.
Coun Westmorland and residents at the station car park.Coun Westmorland and residents at the station car park.
Coun Westmorland and residents at the station car park.

Motorists have been forced to leave their cars on residential streets in the village due to a shortage of spaces in the railway station and country park car park.

Wakefield Council has now secured funding from the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) to create more spaces at the site, to help accommodate growing numbers of visitors and commuters.

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Ann Westmorland, Fitzwilliam councillor at Hemsworth Town Council, said: “This is brilliant news and I hope work to create the new spaces is now done quickly.

“For too long, people have been parking on residential streets because the car park has been full.

“The streets are only narrow and it’s caused all sorts of problems like people being blocked in and ambulances not being able to get through.”

Coun Westmorland said the new spaces were “desperately needed”, after “well over a year” of problems.

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She said: “A lot of elderly people on mobility scooters, and disabled people,have struggled to get past cars parked at the side of the road.”

Wakefield Council approved a scheme to expand the car park at a meeting in January, subject to funding from the WYCA.

The council is also managing the demolition of several unused council-owned garages on Railway Terrace to help create additional parking spaces near to the station

It said it understood residents’ frustration caused by people parking outside their homes.

The car park was initially designed for people visiting Fitzwilliam Country Park but is also used by people travelling by rail to work in Wakefield, Leeds and Sheffield.