An appeal against the refusal to allow charges to be levied at the Matalan car park in Rhyl has been formally lodged by the owners.

This follows the submission of an application to Denbighshire planners for permission to charge after two hours’ free parking.

Currently parking at the site is free 24 hours a day. This was a condition of the original permission to develop the site for retailing. An application was made to have this condition removed raised a storm of protest in the town and was rejected.

The site is owned by Nectar Asset Management of Copenhagen and managed by Euro Car Parks.

Graeme Rich, who runs the town’s 4,000-strong forum on Facebook and has led a campaign to retain free parking on the site, said: “The new application seems a reasonable approach, but maybe two hours is a little short.

“In terms of the appeal, I will make representations for the Rhyl forum and ask for it to be dismissed.”

The company installed parking meters and charged fees without permission from the end of July.

Mr Rich added: “At the end of October the machines were covered up and they have stopped charging for the time being, but still haven’t answered the question how people can recover wrongly imposed charges imposed since last July.