WORK has finished to create long-awaited car parking spaces at the Top o'Town car park in Dorchester.

West Dorset District Council has knocked down garages to create 34 extra spaces at the busy car park near the Keep Military Museum.

Council leader Gwyn Pritchard hailed the end of the project 10 days ahead of schedule to meet extra demand during the summer holidays.

The work comes after residents complained about the garages becoming dilapidated and being a haven for vermin and vagrants.

Coun Pritchard said: "Thirty-four extra spaces will be a huge asset to this popular car park, particularly at this time of year.

"I would like to thank the regular users for their co-operation while the work was carried out."

The car park now has 239 long-stay car parking spaces and 10 coach and lorry bays. The work included landscaping and building new boundary walls.

It comes after the business community criticised the council for changing long-stay spaces to short stay at the Wollaston Field car park in the town centre. The council cordoned off 37 of the car parks 172 spaces to be used as a short-stay zone as part of a plan by its car parking scrutiny group.

Nearly 100 shop workers and staff signed a petition drawn up by businessman Peter Leatherdale against the scheme, protesting that there were not enough long-stay car parking spaces in town.

A council spokesman said the move was in line with plans to convert town-centre parking into short stay provision and that there were long stay spaces on the Upper Fairfield car park near the former Eldridge Pope complex.

A report into the success of the scheme is to be discussed by councillors at the end of the summer.

The work on the Top o'Town car park was scheduled to take nine weeks and came after plans for a transport interchange were scrapped.