CAR PARK CHARGES

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The cost of parking at Westfield has gone up. The cost of an hour's parking has stayed the same at £1.60 but the cost of two hours' has risen from £2.20 to £2.60. To park for three hours now costs £3.60 compared with £2.70 previously. The four-hour tariff has risen from £3.50 to £4.60 and the charge for five hours' parking has gone up from £4.50 to £5.60. Matt Slade, assistant centre manager for Westfield Derby, said the rise reflected the improved facilities at the car parks.

He said, "We haven't put prices up in five years because we wanted to wait until all the changes and improvements for the new centre were embedded. We now have more parent and baby and disabled parking bays and the basement car park has been refurbished as well. There are also new pay machines and we have included credit and debit card payment facilities at the machines." (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph, Dec/07)

Charges for pay and display, on-street and multi-storey parking will rise by about 9% with some rising by 25% from January. Pay and display car parks will have their evening tariffs changed. The cheaper evening rate in these car parks currently starts at 6pm, but under the new parking charges, people would pay the daytime rate until 8pm, after which parking would be free. Free parking at on-street sites controlled by pay and display machines would also only apply after 8pm, instead of after 6pm at present.

Councillor Ranjit Banwait, cabinet member for transportation and highways, said the changes would make parking charges more consistent. He said, "We have not increased charges for nearly two years. This is about rationalising the parking tariffs. We got a lot of feedback saying the two different tariffs were confusing so this should alleviate that." The changes are expected to bring the council £357,000 in a year. Parking attendants will cover the later operating times.

On-street parking will go up 10p to £1.40 an hour and motorists will be charged until 8pm rather than the present 6pm. At the short stay car parks in Ford Street, Little City, Liversage Street, Sacheverel Street and Wilmot Street, the cost of an hour's parking will go from £1.10 to £1.20. People will be charged to park there until 8pm on the usual day rate but the previous evening charge of 80p has been scrapped. Multi-storey car parks will still have different daytime and evening rates but their prices will also go up. (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph, Nov/07)

We had friends come to Derby to go with us to see Gervase Phinn, at the Assembly Rooms. We gave ourselves an hour to park and get to our seats. The traffic queue for the car park was already back to Derwent Bridge. We three ladies (one of whom was 86 years old) were dropped off on the approach to the car park. Our men carried on to park the car. It turned out that the car park was full. It was like a helter-skelter with cars driving up to the top floor and then out again, just one continuous circle of cars.

There was no sign saying that the car park was full and nobody was stopping cars entering. It was absolute chaos. The Eagle Centre car park was closed, as was the Cock Pit car park. Eventually, one of our men ran back to the Assembly Rooms from the other side of town to tell us to go in as they would not be able to join us as no car parks were available in the vicinity of the Assembly Rooms. Many people, us included, had to return tickets because they could not park. Ann Brown

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