SHOPPERS in Stroud town centre will benefit from extra parking spaces if plans to acquire additional land off Church Street is approved.

Stroud District Council will discuss the possibility of purchasing two extra plots alongside its existing Church Street pay and display car park at an executive members’ meeting in Ebley Mill on Thursday night, September 13.

Councillors will propose allocating up to £150,000 to buy the land, which was acquired by Gloucestershire County Council some 40 years ago for a since abandoned inner ring-road scheme. Plans to purchase a fourth parcel of land owned by the police off nearby Ryeleaze Road were scrapped when the force declined to sell on the grounds that the plot could be used in future re-developments of the adjoining police station.