CAR PARK CHARGES

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Derby City Council is considering the installation of electronic signs around the city to inform people of the exact number of spaces available in each major car park. The council has agreed to spend around £45,000 on a software system which will monitor cars entering and leaving the city's five multi-storey car parks and relay that information to the signs.

The electronic signs are likely to be placed on all the main routes into the city centre and the total bill for the system, which will come from the city's local transport plan budget, could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. The system would operate for the Assembly Rooms, Chapel Street, Bold Lane, Eagle Centre and Cockpit car parks.

Christine Durrant, head of transportaion and special projects at the city council, said, "The benefit of the system would be that it would provide drivers with information to get to places as quickly as they can without having to wait around or turn up at a car park that's full. As the city centre expands, more cars will be using it and finding parking spaces could become more of a problem."

Britain is set to run out of parking spaces within the next five years unless radical steps are taken to solve the growing shortage, according to a report from one of the country's leading motoring organisations. The RAC Foundation predicts that attacks on parking wardens will escalate as traffic continues to rise. In some parts of the country, traffic wardens have started to wear body armour to protect themselves.

Territorial battles over parking slots have become a feature of residential life, with the number of cars exceeding official spaces in some areas. A survey commissioned by the foundation reveals that nearly a third of motorists are already abandoning their journeys because they cannot find anywhere to park. The NOP survey suggests that the issue is affecting a growing range of important personal decisions, with a third of those questioned saying that they would prefer to move home rather than give up their local parking space.

The RAC Foundation recommends a number of strategies to deal with the problem, including storing cars in underground silos, introducing parking payments using mobile phone technology and the use of microwave technology allowing drivers to book spaces in advance. Edmund King, the executive director of the RAC Foundation, said, "Restricting parking does not curb car ownership. We believe that within five years the situation will reach a crisis point with a doubling in the number of motorists abandoning their journeys unless action is taken."

The number of car owners is expected to rise by 45% by the year 2030. Motorists are resorting to extreme measuresto accommodate their cars. The NOP survey, based on interviews with 500 drivers across the country, found that more than half would consider converting their garden into a parking area if they had no access to residential parking, although thistactic is already banned by town planners in many urban areas. In one incident highlighted in the report, a motorist in Bournemouth returned to her car to find double yellow lines had been painted either side of her car and a ticket on her windscreen. Sophie Goodchild

Car parking charges are set to increase by up to 50%. The proposed increases, part of the city council's draft budget recommendations for 2005-06, represent the biggest rise in car parking charges in recent years. The council's development and cultural services department has proposed two alternative levels of parking charge increases. The lower proposal would see one hour at the Assembly Room costing just £1.10. But councillors have indicated they will approve the higher proposal, which would net the authority an estimated £332,000 extra revenue a year.

It is understood this will be agreed only on the proviso that the difference in revenue between the two alternatives, an estimated £74,000, goes directly to fund public transport improvements. Councillor Philip Hickson, deputy leader of the council, has indicated that "most" of his cabinet colleagues would agree to the additional rise if the extra cash was ring-fenced for public transport improvements.

He suggested that some of the money could be used to fund bus lanes and promotional material to help scale down people's reliance on cars. But Jonathan Guest, director of development and cultural services, suggested a more tangible approach was more likely, such as funding pilot bus routes.

The increases will see the price of one-hour's parking at the Assembly Rooms car park increase by 40% from £1 to £1.40, which is double the 70p charge of four years ago. Other increases range from around 12.5%, from £4 to £4.50 for four hours at Bold Lane car park, to 33%, from 60p to 80p for one hour at Chapel Street car park. On-street parking charges will rise from 50p to 60p for one hour.

Councillor Ahern tries to justify the proposed above-inflation rises in car parking charges by saying that any extra money raised would be used "to fund public transport improvements". Using Chaddesden as an example, he says that parts of it do not have a bus service and that money raised from charges "could be used to pay a bus operator to run one". But why should money extorted from the motorist at above-inflation rates have to be used to pay a bus operator?

Perhaps he would like to say why Chaddesden, or indeed any other part of the city, doesn't have a bus service, and why he expects motorists, who don't use public transport, to have to help pay for it? I seem to recall the old Derby Corporation running perfectly adequate bus services around the city for many years. The motorist wasn't there years ago to be fleeced, as they are today. I think the truth of the matter is that the council sees car parks in much the same way as the police see speed cameras, as an easy way to generate a lot of money for very little outlay. Where would the Government, councils, or the police be without the money squeezed from motorists? S Radford

Ah what joy this morning. I'm one of the poor people who use Chapel Street carpark, there was a queue right back to St Michaels Lane this morning because the car parks new payment system works so badly. And so I go into the office and telephone the council to complain that I can't get my car around the corner without reversing, my plastic card doesn't operate the barrier and the machines on the way out are so badly placed I can't reach the slot on the machine.

I then tried to get a complaint form off the council website and surprise, surprise their website is down!! I have used this car park for nearly ten years and it worked perfectly OK until now. The council did eventually send some people out to sort this out. They have put back the bollards that were probably blown away by the wind and declared one of the machines out of order. Anon