THE boss of Bluestar has called for Christmas shoppers to be offered free bus travel as an incentive to visit town centres.

Free car parking has been used by some councils as a way to attract shoppers on key dates in December, although Southampton City Council has no plans to introduce the perk.

READ MORE: Will there be free Christmas parking in and around Southampton?

Andrew Wickham, managing director of Go South Coast – which owns Bluestar as well as bus operators in Dorset and Salisbury – pointed to the example of Worcester, which recently introduced free bus travel instead of free parking.

He wrote on Twitter: “Paging local authorities, BIDs (business improvement districts) etc across our area. Please come and talk to us – there’s still time – doing this could make a big difference to high streets – and carbon emissions.”

Mr Wickham told the Daily Echo: “The standard local authority reaction to ‘What can we do to support town centres?’ is free car parking.

“We want things that support town centres because we think it’s really important to the fabric of society – they’re really important to us.

“But I don’t think free car parking is well thought through, in that most of our local authorities have declared a climate emergency and therefore encouraging people to jump into their car is diametrically opposed to that plan.

“It’s wrong on that level and vast swaths of the population don’t have access to a car for many reasons, through age, choice, medical condition or they don’t have a driving licence – whereas buses are accessible to all ages, wheelchair users and all sorts.

“We’re not saying it should be forever or anything like that but perhaps a couple of Saturdays before Christmas might be quite a nice way for people to support the high street.

“We’d be happy to talk to anybody about anything.”

READ MORE: Bluestar confirms all existing City Red areas will be served

He rejected the idea that free parking is needed to attract people to towns, saying Brighton is “one of the most car-restrictive places in the country” yet its shopping areas have been “absolutely rammed” ahead of Christmas.

Bluestar recently stepped in to pick up routes previously run by City Red, after the rival operator announced it would be stopping Southampton operations next February. 

A Southampton City Council spokesperson said: "We are aware that the cost of living is increasing rapidly and we want to help residents with the cost of transport so they can continue to undertake their daily journeys. This is why we are supporting more affordable bus travel with two separate offers; the first one is our £1 evening travel where passengers can travel for just £1 after 6pm on Bluestar and City Red buses, in and around the city.

"We have also extended the 5 for £5 offer which allows groups of up to five people to travel at weekends on Bluestar and City Red services.

"Like many other local authorities, Southampton City Council are not receiving additional funding from the Department for Transport to support the delivery of the Bus Service Improvement Plan, including fares and ticketing initiatives."