Food festival shoppers failed to spot a free parking bargain

PRESSED for time, I paid only a flying visit to Salisbury’s Food & Drink Festival a couple of weeks ago.
It was a shame, since the event is a great favourite of mine, and eating (too much) could be classed as one of my hobbies. But the sun was shining and the stallholders seemed to be doing very well without me!
Now among the things that aren’t great favourites of mine, as regular readers may have gathered, is Wiltshire Council. Its unpalatable parking charges have provided me with fodder for many an article.
So naturally I drove to Culver Street where, it being a Sunday, parking was free thanks to an arrangement negotiated with the council by the Salisbury BID team.
Halfway through the morning, the multi-storey was still two-thirds empty.
But, I was astonished to see, Brown Street – where motorists must part with their hard-earned cash for the privilege of saving themselves a walk of perhaps 30 seconds from Culver Street – was packed.
I wondered whether this was an indication that we have turned into a nation of lardies who are too idle to use our legs, or whether people simply weren’t aware that there was somewhere close by where they didn’t need to pay.
If they’d read their local paper, of course, they would have known, as the Journal has given the initiative plenty of coverage on its news pages.
But if they hadn’t, they probably won’t be reading this column either.
So may I suggest that more effort is made by the BID to publicise the bargain?
Nobody’s going to look on websites unless they know there’s some reason to do so. So that’s not an option for reaching out to the masses.
What, then? Giant placards around the city centre, maybe? Someone dressed up in an outsize dragon costume (to reflect our historic connections with the St George legend) handing out flyers in the Market Place on a few Tuesdays and Saturdays?
I’m sure it wouldn’t take much more ingenuity than that for the word to get out – after all, everyone loves a freebie.