A PARKING project is set to make visiting Dorchester easier than ever before.

Dorchester BID members teamed up with Dorset County Council in a project to make parking in the county town a simple task.

Not only has new parking space signage been erected around the town, there is now a live online feed available to point out the individual space capacity in different car parks.

And that’s not to forget the numbers of ambassadors waiting to welcome visitors.

The Dorchester BID has been liaising with Dorset County Council to have signage at the entrance to Dorchester’s main car parks showing spaces.

A second phase saw a series of variable message boards around the approaches to town showing the individual space capacity in the different car parks.

The BID then made a request to DCC that they placed a feed on to their ‘Dorset for you’ website showing this information, which is now in place.

The car park information is updated live to the site at five minute intervals so as to give a reasonably useful indication of spaces. Phil Gordon, Dorchester BID project director, said: “It has been really useful to be involved with this DCC project and we have contributed a few ideas.

“Our town ambassadors are out and about right now during the school holidays helping people find spaces quickly and giving them a warm welcome to the town.

“Their lives are much easier now as before we would have to go to every car park and count up spaces before relaying the information around town, now they just need to get close enough to read the sign.

“We know that the data is never going to be 100 per cent accurate but it’s a great indicator.

“The data live on a website is really handy for people planning a trip to town as it clearly will help them time their visit to avoid the busiest periods in the car parks.”

Mr Gordon added: “A short URL to see the page with car park info is tinyurl.com/mpvo45r useful one to bookmark.”

For more information visit dorsetforyou.com/travel-dorset/roads-and-driving/parking/car-parks-in-dorset/dorchester