Leighton Buzzard car park lift out 9 months, scrutiny 10 Sep

The lift at Leighton Buzzard’s West Street multi-storey car park has been out of order since December 2025, and Central Bedfordshire Council has still not published a date for its return. On Thursday 10 September councillors will be asked what happened.

The item is on the agenda for the council’s Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee, at 9.30am in the Council Chamber at Priory House, Shefford. It is there because a Leighton Buzzard councillor put it there.

Councillor Steve Owen, the Independent who represents Leighton Linslade West, submitted a formal Requested Item on 26 July. The form is published in full in the committee’s agenda pack. (Central Bedfordshire Council, Requested Item, Cllr Owen)

What the form says

Cllr Owen sets out five points. In his words, the car park “is used by many local residents including from my ward” and the lift to the upper floors has been out since December 2025, causing “severe inconvenience”.

• Neither officers nor the portfolio holder had given any date for the lift reopening, as at 26 July when the form was submitted.
• No costs have been given for the repair.
• Some months passed before any repair work started, and the council has not explained the delay.
• The cause of the outage has been given as antisocial behaviour, with no further detail and nothing on what is being done to stop it happening again.
• Residents and visitors are complaining to councillors about the car park’s early closing hours.

There is a note about how the correspondence went. Cllr Owen says he has written to several officers and directly to the portfolio holder, who told him by email on 21 May that he would not correspond further with him, but would update other Leighton Buzzard councillors.

The form describes the outage as “approaching 10 months” as at late July. Counted from December 2025, the lift will have been out of service for nine months by the day the committee meets.

What Cllr Owen wants out of it

The form asks the committee for four things:

• a firm reopening date for the lift
• an explanation of why the repair has taken so long, and what can be done to move faster if it happens again
• a review of bringing back the onsite attendants who used to keep security at the car park
• consideration of longer opening hours, particularly in summer

What the council’s own page says

Nothing about the lift. The council’s directory entry for the multi-storey carries a “special message”, but it is about the pay machines: the car park switched to pay on arrival with entry cameras on 11 July 2026. There is no notice that the lift is out. (Central Bedfordshire Council, Multi-storey (West Street), Leighton Buzzard)

The same page gives the car park’s size and hours:

• 266 standard bays, plus 8 permit bays and 2 electric vehicle bays
• 14 disabled bays
• open 7am to 7pm Monday to Saturday, and 9.30am to 5pm on Sundays and bank holidays
• £1 for an hour up to £8.50 all day, £2.20 all day on a Sunday, and a £8.50 lock-in charge

Those opening hours are the ones Cllr Owen’s form says residents are complaining about. We searched the council’s news releases for 2026 and found no statement about the lift at any point since it went out of service.

What it means for you

If you park at the West Street multi-storey and cannot manage stairs, the upper floors have been effectively out of reach for nine months, and the council has published no date on which that changes.

The multi-storey matters more than the others here. Its 14 disabled bays are more than every other council car park in the town put together: Hockliffe Street and Baker Street have two each, Duncombe Drive three, and New Road none.

There are alternatives within walking distance of the same shops, and all of them are surface car parks with no lift to fail:

• Hockliffe Street, 128 bays, open 24 hours, same tariff as the multi-storey, two disabled bays
• Duncombe Drive, 139 bays, free from 1pm to 6pm on Tuesdays, three disabled bays
• Baker Street, 41 bays and ten electric vehicle bays, no tariff published, two hours with no return within an hour
• New Road, eight bays, on the same two-hour terms

The full list of tariffs and free windows is on our parking in Leighton Buzzard page.

The meeting on 10 September is open to the public, and the committee takes questions, statements and deputations from members of the public under the council’s public participation procedure.

What happens next

A Requested Item does not guarantee a debate or a decision. The council’s own form lists the five things the committee can do with it:

1. take no further action, with reasons given
2. refer the matter to the executive or the relevant decision maker, with recommendations
3. refer it to Full Council, if it is a broader issue
4. request more information or an investigation before deciding
5. add it to a future work programme for detailed scrutiny

In most cases, the form says, items go on to a future work programme so that a full report can be written. On that route the lift question would not come back to a committee until later in the autumn.

Sources

• Central Bedfordshire Council, Requested Item form submitted by Cllr Steve Owen, published in the agenda pack for the Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee, for the outage since December 2025, the absence of a reopening date and of costs, the antisocial behaviour attribution, the 21 May email, the four desired outcomes and the committee’s five options.
• Central Bedfordshire Council, agenda for the Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee, 10 September 2026 for the date, time, venue and the public participation procedure.
• Central Bedfordshire Council, Multi-storey (West Street), Leighton Buzzard for the bay counts, disabled bays, opening hours, tariff and the special message about pay on arrival, and for the absence of any notice about the lift.
• Central Bedfordshire Council, car parks directory for the Baker Street, New Road, Hockliffe Street and Duncombe Drive alternatives.