A former mayor of Truro has urged Cornwall Council to demolish a multi-storey car park “before it kills the town off”.

Cllr Bert Biscoe has told a meeting of Truro City Council that the doomed Moorfield car park is blighting the city and the impact of its upper storeys being out of action is seriously affecting businesses.

The upper sections of the car park were closed following an engineering inspection in May 2024 with only the ground floor and outside area remaining open. The loss of over 400 spaces in the 680-space facility off Calenick Street has exacerbated parking problems in the city following the closure of other car parks to make way for the stalled Pydar development.

At a meeting of the city council last night (Monday, September 29), Cllr Steven Webb – who also sits on Cornwall Council – said members had a meeting with Cornwall Council’s portfolio holder for transport Cllr Dan Rogerson earlier that day. “We talked about Moorfield car park – we need a plan, we need to know ahead of time what’s going to happen. We can’t have any surprises.”

However, Cllr Biscoe wasn’t happy with that and believed immediate action was necessary. He asked Cllr Webb to expand on the discussions around Moorfield. “I say this as I’m very conscious there are businesses up and down Lemon Street, there are businesses in Victoria Square and the rest of the town centre which are languishing; they’re in critical need of having that car park facility back.

“It’s partly because it’s a great blight on that area, but mostly because they are not getting custom coming in because that car park is not functioning. Cornwall Council has got to make a calculation. They’ve said it’s more expensive to repair it than it is to take it down. We really need to press them to get on with it, because the longer it’s left, the more stress is going to be suffered by quite key businesses to the detriment of the confidence and sustainability of this town.”

Cllr Biscoe added: “We really need to stand up for them and get it done. We need to have a car park there. I don’t mind if it’s a reduced number of spaces and a ground level car park. It is currently blighting the town centre. There’s no more polite word to use. I’d very much like to know how much closer we are to getting the thing down before it kills the town off.”

Cllr Webb, who is also a former Truro mayor, urged caution. He said that the biggest concern for businesses was being surprised by having something done with the car park without any warning. “The way forward is to keep them informed and not make any rash decisions.”

He said the plan was to keep as many of the spaces operational as possible during any demolition period and there would be mitigation put in place, perhaps utilising the park and rides at opposite ends of the city. “I will stress, I am not going to rush to take away parking spaces that are vital for the city centre just to get rid of the car park.”

Cllr Dan Rogerson, the council’s Liberal Democrat portfolio holder for transport, told us last week: “It obviously costs money to take Moorfield down but we’re looking at that, so at least we would have a bigger surface car park there in the medium term. It’s the sensible thing to do.

“It’s not going to fall on cars that are underneath it, but you can’t put the weight on the top anymore, so the sensible thing to do is to take it down which will have a cost to it, so we’d have to get that in the capital programme, then it will release more car parking there.

“Following that obviously if there are more innovative things they want to do on that site which include car parking with stuff above it, that’s fine – that’s a longer term thing, but we’ve got Pydar to do first. But it’s important we get as much parking on the Moorfield site as we can.”