More information has been revealed about the changes to parking in popular leisure carpark.

Northumberland County Council (NCC) have announced that the long-stay car parking spaces, that will become four hour max, will be implemented 'soon' after work on the Alemouth Road is finished.

Alemouth Road will be used for motorists wishing to stay longer than four hours, as it will have 250 long-stay parking, which will have a maximum stay of 72 hours, no return within 6 hours. It will also be free of charge.

Additionally, car park users will be able to use the three electric vehicle (EV) charging points.

The major carpark changes were announced earlier in the week and are to help meet 'Hexham's parking needs' after it was suggested in commissioned 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.

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 the report it states:"The removal of all long-stay parking bays from Wentworth Car Park is therefore intended to avoid the issue of unnecessary traffic movements into the car park by drivers looking for long-stay spaces and will help mitigate the demand for higher turnover shorter stay parking for shoppers, service users and other visitors to the town."

Other changes include some existing parking bays reallocated to increase the provision of dedicated disabled bays for Blue Badge holders along the rear of Wentworth Car Park near to the public toilets.

All other bays within this car park will require a parking disc obtained from Wentworth Leisure Centre, Waitrose, local shops and disc dispensers for £1.00

The car parks is to remain free of charge and time limits will apply between the hours of 08:00 to 18:00 from Monday – Sunday.