BRADFORD Council has extended the amount of time people in Ilkley will be given before they get a parking ticket by 30 minutes.

The extension will give people extra time to allow for the government’s social distancing measures put in place to control the spread of Covid-19. Shoppers are currently having to queue outside shops and the number of people allowed inside shops is limited. The grace period extension only applies to pay and display parking. The extra 30 minutes adds to the current grace period of 11 minutes and the new policy will remain in place until the end of July.

Cllr Alex Ross-Shaw, Portfolio Holder for Regeneration, Planning and Transport said: “We’ve done a lot of work to help people social distance on the high street but we understand that limits on the amount of people safely allowed in shops at any one time means we’re all queuing to get into many places.

“We don’t want people to get caught out if their parking ticket expires before they’d had the chance to get back to their car, so for a few weeks we’ll allow a longer grace period before enforcing expired parking tickets.”

Cllr Anne Hawkesworth (Ind, Ilkley) said: “This will go part of the way to alleviate the concerns of businesses. I would have thought to just halt the process and not reintroduce the charges for at least until the middle of July would have been helpful. Also to not reintroduce on-street parking charges at all in some areas of the town.”