‘We won’t give them a penny of our money’ – #saveourtown’s car park pledge over C&R’s Newlands Park legal challenge

The #saveourtown campaign group will boycott The Mall shopping centre’s car parks in protest at the legal challenge launched by its owners over Newlands Park. 

Earlier this month, Capital & Regional applied to the High Court for a judicial review of Luton Council’s decision to grant planning consent to the mixed-use scheme at junction 10 of the M1.

The regeneration scheme is the popular brainchild of Luton Town Football Club’s property arm, 2020 Developments, which will help fund the Hatters’ new football stadium at Power Court.

Both developments have planning approval and will combine to create 10,000 new jobs and boost the local economy by £250million per year, however Capital and Regional have long objected to Newlands Park.

Their move to challenge the decision has come under attack from the football club’s supporters’ groups, with warnings that defending the action could cost Luton taxpayers up to £1million. The council has also written a strongly worded riposte, while Hatters chief executive Gary Sweet preempted C&R’s application by calling their arguments against planning consent, ‘weak and toothless’.

Now the community group #saveourtown, which has campaigned about the benefits of the schemes for Luton, has made its position clear, saying, ‘we fully understand that people are so furious that they no longer want to step foot inside that shopping centre. If this is already the case, that is your prerogative.

‘However, we will not support a boycott for one simple reason – it will not affect Capital & Regional. Not in the slightest.

‘A boycott would only affect the businesses in The Mall and therefore its employees, many of whom are our friends, family, neighbours and fellow Lutonians. We look after our own in this town, so that’s not something we can do in good conscience.’

However, #saveourtown has said it will no longer use any of The Mall’s three car parks, claiming that revenue collected from them is one of Capital & Regional’s main sources of income. 

‘According to their annual report, across the UK in 2018 – from car parks for their eight shopping centres – they made £10.7million,’ the campaign group have said. 

‘The cash they make from car parks is around 12 per cent of their annual revenue, but perhaps more startlingly, given that very few overheads will be incurred in that activity, their car parks probably account for around 40 per cent of their total profit, of roughly £25million.

‘So, while we won’t support a boycott of The Mall, we, as a group, and individually, have decided to completely shun the Central car park, Library car park and Market car park.

‘Instead, we will be using the car park at Power Court opposite the Parish Church by the traffic lights.’

The Power Court car park is owned by Luton Town Football Club and offers all-day parking on Saturdays for £2.40, compared to £8 in The Mall. 

#saveourtown added: ‘To put it in perspective, we estimate that if each one of C&R’s 1,724 spaces across the Market, Central and Library car parks went unused on a Saturday alone it would cost them £13,792 every week (that’s nearly three quarters of a million pounds a year).

‘We won’t give them a penny of our money and will avoid The Mall’s car parks like the plague. We believe this is a decision that is in the best interests of OUR town….and our pockets.’