REVELLERS at the Yuletide Festival will be able to park for free after East Hampshire District Council waived the fee.
The annual town event on Sunday, December 7, is expected to draw in thousands of visitors with a mix of market and craft stalls, entertainment and festive attractions.
Pleased to have achieved the concession, Andrew Joy, lead councillor for Alton, said: "This scheme will benefit those who plan to travel to the Yuletide Festival and the organisers themselves.
"I really hope it will encourage more visitors to this fantastic family event and will make it more of a success than it already is."
While the Lib Dems are hailing the free parking as a small victory in their bid to force the Tory-run council to reverse Sunday parking fees, Andrew Joy has a different view. Having worked hard to achieve this concession he regards it as "a welcome consideration of Alton's needs".
It is, however, only for one day and EHDC has no intention of extending the three-year trial period that allowed Christmas parking concessions up to and including 2007.
According to EHDC head of legal services Jo Gabell, informal consultation with the business community had indicated that free parking had not increased footfall over the Christmas trading periods.
While EHDC was willing to take the hit financially if such a scheme was seen to benefit local business, it would not be serving the tax payers if it was simply losing revenue to no end.
As a result, EHDC had decided not to continue with the Christmas concessions, other than on a targeted events basis, but instead to organise a three-day district festival to boost the local economy, which this year will take place in Petersfield. If successful, the idea would be to move the festival around the district.
Because this event will coincide with Alton's Yuletide Festival, EHDC decided to waive parking fees in Alton for the day to offset the impact of both events occurring on the same weekend. There will be no concession in Petersfield on that day.
Mr Joy explained: "EHDC has put considerable effort into the Petersfield Christmas Festival but we (as councillors) wanted to show our support for Alton's Yuletide Festival as well."
News of Alton's Yuletide parking concessions comes hot on the heels of concerns, expressed in last week's Alton Herald, that EHDC had decided to withdraw its free Christmas parking scheme.
While the fears appear to be well founded - albeit on economic grounds - the Liberal Democrats believe that public pressure has forced this event-based concession and that it could pave the way for a U-turn.
Lib-Dem parliamentary candidate Adam Carew said that while the one-day concession was welcome, more was needed: "The Tories are already foundering under public pressure about unpopular car parking charges.
"If they have any sense they will bring this matter back to Cabinet as a matter of urgency and allow the Christmas scheme to go ahead as per usual.
"This is a small victory but our joint campaign with residents to reverse Sunday parking charges and the appalling hikes in car park charges goes from strength to strength."
EHDC Liberal Democrat group leader and district councillor Jerry Janes said of the Yuletide concession: "I hope this offers a small compensation to the outrageous treatment of the people of Alton for the imposition of increased and Sunday car parking charges by the Tory district council."
County council colleague Tony Ludlow added: "I am delighted at this U-turn. When collecting petitions last week, residents we spoke to felt Tory EHDC's previous decision not to support free parking this Christmas was mean-spirited, possibly even vindictive.
"Our campaign against increased car parking charges and Sunday parking continues to grow and this victory will really boost our momentum."