Conservative city councillors are proposing an extension to a free Carlisle parking scheme, which one Labour councillor describes as “not having done any good at all”.

The “Free After Three” parking scheme, introduced in August last year, was due to end in March.

But it has now been proposed that the scheme be extended to August 2020, something which is yet to be decided on by the city council executive.

Conservative councillor Nigel Christian, portfolio holder for environment and transport, said extending the scheme would help the council get a clearer picture of how effective it was at encouraging more shoppers into the city centre.

“It seems to have been fairly well received by people, but we’re also finding that it hasn’t had a huge impact on increasing footfall into city centre shops,” Mr Christian said.

Mr Christian said a number of “unfortunate and unforeseen” complications had likely had an impact on city centre footfall over the past several months.

“There’s been a number of issues, such as the extended period in which roadworks have been conducted on Warwick Road.

“We’ve also had the closure of Victoria Viaduct as well, which will undoubtedly have had an impact.

“With the scheme extended, we’ll get to a period of stability where we can properly work out just what sort of an impact it’s having on the city centre.”

“If we’re going to properly understand what’s going on we need to run it for longer.”

But Labour Party councillor and former portfolio holder for environment and transport, Chris Southward, said all indications are that the scheme was flawed from the start.

“Very few people have answered the resident questionnaire designed to give feedback on the scheme,” he said.

“Businesses in the city centre have been approached to put together a report for the executive.

“Shopkeepers have said that they haven’t seen a noticeable increase in footfall.

“It hasn’t been doing them any good at all.”

Mr Southward said he could not see how the scheme would encourage a change in people’s shopping behaviour.

“I have relatives in west Cumbria. They come to Carlisle to do their shopping.

“This scheme hasn’t changed their habits at all. They’re not going to come all the way from west Cumbria to start shopping after 3pm.”