Major carpark changes have been announced to help meet 'Hexham's parking needs'.

Northumberland County Council (NCC) has announced that they will be changing the parking arrangements in Hexham Town Centre following a commissioned a study put together in 2017.

The study concluded that the demand for parking in Hexham is assumed to increase by approximately 0.9% per year in the future years, based on housing and traffic growth forecasts. This is expected to lead to further capacity issues and an overspill of parking in other locations, including surrounding streets.

The new changes that will be introuduced at Wentworth Leisure Centre car park and the former Hexham bunker site and soon-to-be-named Alemouth Road.

It is hoped that it will avoid the issue of unnecessary traffic movements into the car park by drivers looking for long-stay spaces.

In Wentworth carpark, the usual 'Long stay' arrangements, which are normally all-day, is now going to be four-hour max.

Any motorists wishing to park for longer than 4 hours will be directed to the new Alemouth Road Car Park where it will have a maximum stay of 72 hours, no return within 6 hours. There will also be 3 Electric Vehicle (EV) charging points available to car park users within Alemouth Road Car Park

Other changes at Wentworth Car Park include more disabled bays for Blue Badge holders near to the public toilets. However, one thing that stays the same is all bays within this car park will require a parking disc to be displayed.

Parking discs can still be obtained from Wentworth Leisure Centre, Waitrose, local shops and disc dispensers for £1.00. The car park is still free of charge.

Additional changes in town also include implementing two new parking bays on the northern side of Hencotes.

On the western bay, parking is valid between Monday to Saturday between 7am and 5pm, it will be a 20 minutes maximum stay with no return within 1 hour, or residents displaying a valid ‘H4’ zone permit.

Whereas in the eastern bay, Monday to Saturday between 7am and 5pm, 20 minutes maximum stay with no return within 1 hour.