Do you want to buy a car park?

Tunbridge Wells Borough Council has begun marketing the first of five town centre plots declared “surplus to requirements.”

The 0.46 acre site is in a prime location, close to both the key shopping thoroughfare of Mount Pleasant Road and to the town’s premier park, Calverly Gardens.

The car park has 60 spaces, but has in recent years only been open to the public at weekends. From Monday to Friday, it was leased to Axa for use by their staff at adjacent offices.

It is supposed that most potential buyers will be looking to obtain planning consent to redevelop the land. Only a few hundred yards away, on the other side of Mount Pleasant Road, planning permission has been granted for a seven-story block of retirement homes.

The car park is being marketed through Lambert Smith Hampton. Access is from Mount Pleasant Avenue.

The agents describe it as an “exciting development opportunity in a desirable residential neighbourhood.”

There is no named asking price. Instead, conditional and unconditional offers are being sought for the freehold with vacant possession.

The four other car parks that the borough council is considering selling off are at Great Hall (205 spaces) adjacent to Calverley Gardens; Meadow Road (450 spaces), Torrington Car Park off Vale Avenue (243 spaces) and Linden Park (54 spaces).

Tunbridge Wells council currently provides 3,500 parking spaces in the town centre, and around 4,500 across the borough.

In March, the council said that the car parks would only be sold “in tandem with a new parking strategy” and promised “sufficient car parking will be retained to meet the future needs of Royal Tunbridge Wells.”

No new parking strategy has yet been approved.

Cllr Nicholas Pope, the Tunbridge Wells Alliance member for Park Ward, said that he thought the sale would have minimal impact on parking in the town. He said: “To be honest, most people did not even know it was open to the public at weekends.”

He said the site had been ear-marked for development for a very long time and its sale would come as “no surprise to anyone.”

A council spokesman said: “We said in March that no decisions had been taken and that decisions would be made in tandem with a new parking strategy.

“That hasn’t changed. The parking strategy is being developed and was considered when the marketing for sale of Mount Pleasant Avenue car park was explored.

“The decision to sell Mount Pleasant Avenue will be made by full council later this year.”