Support for traders announced

The services, which also relate to Belfast, Lisburn and Newry, will operate on each evening when there is late night shopping and all day on Saturdays with the last service leaving the city centre 30 minutes after the shops close. These services will operate for five weeks from Monday, November 19 to Saturday, December 22.

Announced by Transport Minister, Danny Kennedy, in a package of measures to provide “real help for shoppers” the Minister said it would also offer “much needed support to traders in the run up to Christmas”.

“These measures are about encouraging people to come into their city centres and helping their money go further this Christmas. As the challenges of the recession continue, my Department, in conjunction with Translink, is working to make cities as accessible as possible to all.”

There will be free Park and Ride Services after 4.30pm on weekdays and all day each Saturday. For these five weeks, each of the Park and Ride services above will provide free parking and bus travel for people travelling into the city after 4.30pm on the weekdays when late night shopping is in place and all day each Saturday.

Other measures include reduced Saturday Metro Fares and an extention of the £2 promotional day ticket offering unlimited travel on Metro services in Belfast after 9.30am on Saturdays until 5 January 2013. He also announced an embargo on road works on strategic routes in the Greater Belfast area until after Christmas, and train capacity between Coleraine and Belfast is also part of the package. There will also be an additional late night Christmas shopping train. From Saturday 3 December an additional late night Christmas shopping train will be introduced from Great Victoria Street Station to Coleraine, departing Belfast at 10.08pm, Monday to Saturday, which will run until December 22.

The Minister added “These measures will encourage people to use public transport which will, in turn, make it easier for those who need to use a car to park and drive within the cities.

“I am aware that there have been calls for free on-street parking in the lead up to Christmas but in previous years we have seen that this led to an increase in congestion and created parking safety issues. The measures developed by my Department, in conjunction with Translink, provide better choice and value for all road users which will lead to more people using our city centres for Christmas shopping, providing a vital boost for our traders.”