CERTAIN council employees will be able to use Salisbury's park and ride system free of charge to get to work at the new Bourne Hill offices.

There will be 500 staff working at the new offices. Across the city there will be 123 staff who will still be able to use park and ride permits, while the rest will not.

A Wiltshire Council spokesman said: “Wiltshire Council has inherited a large number of differing contractual terms and conditions of employment from the previous five councils, including parking arrangements.

“The council is working jointly with the unions to review these so one harmonised set of terms and conditions of employment can be adopted in the future.”

She said arrangements may change in the future but until a decision is made, the council is honouring contracts of employment transferred from the former councils under regulations that applied to the local government reorganisation.

It comes at a time when the council has been talking about raising the cost of parking in the city centre and cutting the number of long-stay parking spaces in order to encourage all commuters to use the park and ride buses.

Currently 4.5 per cent of park and ride users are council staff.

The news comes just weeks after it was announced staff at Salisbury District Hospital will have to pay to park there despite the relative difficulty of getting to the site by public transport.

The latest park and ride terminal was opened at Petersfinger, Southampton Road, on June 1.

Asked for the latest figures on how many people are using it, the council said none were available.