Visitors to Sittingbourne now have to pay to use a popular town centre car park all the way up to midnight

Councillors extended the charges at the Forum shopping centre car park from Friday - April 1.

Matt Barnes, a member of the public, said: “At first I thought it was an April Fools’ hoax. But apparently not. The Forum is no longer free after 6pm.

“It seems the coalition administration not content with trying to kill our high streets is now targeting the town’s night life. Not even the city of Canterbury charges drivers like this.”

The Forum is the nearest car park to Sittingbourne’s new ‘leisure quarter’ which includes the Light cinema, bowling alley, restaurants like Nando’s and the Sentado Lounge and a Travelodge hotel.

A hastily-printed laminated sign tied to a lamppost was the first many drivers knew of the charges, which were agreed by councillors on February 22.

All the rest of the council’s car parks are free after 6pm and before 8am.

The recommendation to increase charges by 20% was pushed through by cabinet member for finance and council leader Roger Truelove (Lab, Homewood).

At the time, Cllr Oliver Eakin (Con, Sheerness) tabled a last-minute motion to freeze parking charges.

He said: “With running costs as high as ever and the threat of online shopping booming, traders now have to face a 20% increase in parking charges.”

Council officers warned that freezing prices would cost the authority £275,000. A four-hour stay at the Forum now costs £4.80.

Those watching movies or bowling can use the council’s new £3m Bourne Place multi-storey free all day Sunday and after 6pm Monday to Saturday providing they have their ticket validated at the cinema. No such deal exists with the restaurants.

Cllr Elliot Jayes (Independents Alliance, Sheppey Central) defended the move to extend the Forum parking charges. He said: “It’s not a massive distance to use the new multi-storey car park which is free after 6pm, has CCTV security cameras and was built exactly for this.”

A Swale council spokeswoman said: “Because of its premium location we increased the charge period for parking at The Forum car park from 6pm to midnight to help us meet the increased demand of the successful night time economy. All other council car parks are free after 6pm.”

She denied the fee extension was a ploy to get more people to use the multi-storey car park.

She said: “We had 77,000 transactions at the multi-storey car park last financial year (2021-22) so it’s already well used.”

A four-hour stay at both the Forum and multi-storey car parks cost £4.80.