Government Minister Julian Francis says vendors who are occupying parking spaces in Kingstown will have to move.
Francis speaking on Tuesday night said right now, not a single businessman or property owner between Jax Enterprises and Heritage Square could find parking for his/her vehicle. We can’t allow that to continue he said.
“It has to stop. The wings of the market are very attractive and one of the things that we have air marked those wings for will be dry good vendors and we’re not going to do it, low class but we are not going to have any construction or addition to the building but we will have sufficient and attractive covering for those vendors who will be vending up there”.
“Bedford street totally blocked out for parking. The only thing that parks there is a van selling bread and other vans and men slip inside there to vend from, that is a lot of parking that has been taken away from a city. I’m not looking after any individual businessman, I’m looking at it generally”.
Francis further stated that Ph Vera to ACE very few vehicles can park there anymore.
“The vendors are actually on the road itself, on the street and narrowing the lane that is supposed to take traffic out of town which goes through the market area”.
“Coreas to input warehouse on that side of the street is almost taken over by vending and by stalls. Coreas to Gibson, I don’t know how many vehicles you see parked there now, there’s a private parking lot for Coreas but that area is gone. From where I normally have the bar to Anglican school and down to input warehouse maybe three spaces are left for parking vehicles”.
“I’m just giving you a picture of what we have to do to get this done”.
Francis said one of the arguments is that when you are on the street the customer finds you easy.
“Well, if you have been serving customers for so long, they will always be faithful to you because your product is good. If you move into the building, let’s say, the customs building and you free up the parking spaces more than likely it is your customer that will come there to park and buy from you”, he said.
