Even Santa Claus made to pay for parking in Nantwich!

Cheshire East Council has come in for some stick this year over its car parking policy.

But it ‘snow’ joke when they ended up charging Santa Claus during his flying visit to Nantwich today!

And even Father Christmas had to scrabble around for some loose change when he parked up on Love Lane car park.

Presumably, Santa had left his debit card back in his sleigh – or could not work out where the ‘contactless’ pad was.

And it’s a shame he couldn’t get to Nantwich a day earlier – December 22 was the last of the four days’ of free parking allowed for shoppers in the run up to Christmas.

At least his parking fee will help contribute to the £180,000 the council expects to make from parking over the festive period in Cheshire East.

Councillors had earlier called on CEC bosses to suspend parking charges to help local shops struggling in the current economic climate.

The CEC parking policy has been controversial for several years with some towns like Nantwich and Crewe having to pay, while others like Sandbach, Middlewich and Alsager have free parking.

We revealed in November that Cheshire East Council is to review its car parking charge policy as it faces a huge hole in its finances.

Let’s just hope Rudolph and his sleigh were not taking up two parking bays – or he may have been towed away!

(Image provided by Nantwich News reader John Doherty)