VALE of White Horse District Council has seemingly scored a hit with its decision to allow free parking across its district – most crucially in Abingdon and Wantage.

As we report today, there has been a very healthy 71 per cent in the increase of people using car parks in the Vale since it allowed motorist to park for free for up to two hours.

It estimates a cost of £250,000, although it worked to offset that by raising charges for longer stays.

It is early days for the scheme but logic and feedback from traders would suggest this is a council initiative that identified a problem for its businesses and worked to address it. Usage had fallen from near one million in 2003/04 to just over half a million in 2011.

The theory is all about through-put. Make it as easy and attractive for people to pop in and the traders will benefit. Further downstream, the towns as a whole and the council coffers, through more traders paying their business rates, inevitably grow as well.

Abingdon and Wantage are of course far different to Oxford but Colin Cook’s comments about the wish to dissuade cars from the central city by heavy charges are stark in contrast.

Given that the city council pocketed more than £3m in parking surplus in 2011/12, it’s a rare case of economics and ideology working hand in glove.