To help combat the negative impact on the high street from the coronavirus pandemic and online shopping, a free parking scheme is being relaunched.

The local community is being encouraged back to the town centre and by spending money in the shops, they get their parking costs refunded.

Dorchester BID's Park4FREE initiative is coming back.

Shoppers can park in Dorchester for two hours for around £1 but by buy taking the voucher part of their ticket shopping with them, they can get the £1 refunded when they spend £10 or more in any of the 70 plus shops and other businesses supporting the scheme.

The ticket machines in all the car parks around the town issue a double ticket and the voucher part is usable on the day of shopping or even on a future visit to town. If you are parking on-street, you can bring your parking ticket from a previous visit and use this instead as the on-street machines only issue the part you need to display in your car.

Phil Gordon, Dorchester BID project director, said: "The Dorchester BID is relaunching its pioneering and highly successful Park4FREE voucher scheme to help boost the recovery of the high street by reducing or entirely removing the cost of parking in the town.

"Many of Dorchester's well-established businesses have been joined by several exciting new businesses who all believe that our county town has a bright future, one that they want to be part of.

"Many shops selling essential goods have managed to remain open during lockdown have told us that they couldn't have done so without the support of their community and wanted to publicly thank everyone for their support, care and continuing custom."

Amidst all the doom and gloom of the last year, Dorchester has welcomed more than 12 new shops and businesses, including two, vegan/vegetarian cafes, bakeries, restaurants, a phone shop, a record shop and more.

Neil Strudwick, owner of Goldcrest Jewellers and Dorchester BID chairman, said: "Now that things are starting to 'unlock' from April 12 onwards, it's a great time to re-discover all that Dorchester has to offer and enjoy some well-managed, socially distanced shopping with, of course, free parking using the voucher scheme."

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