CAR PARK CHARGES

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Car parking charges are set to rocket as councils look for ways to beat cuts in government funding. Leisure centre fees and library fines will also rise to help fill a predicted £13billion black hole in local authority budgets over the next five years. And town hall chiefs are threatening a crippling rise in council tax once Chancellor George Osborne's one-year freeze ends. Until then they will use stealth taxes.

Council leaders insist they must find "new income streams" to maintain vital services for the elderly, the disabled and kids at risk. Fees for parking, swimming, council-run gyms and adult education classes will all go up, along with fines for excess parking, dog-fouling, litter-dropping and fly-tipping. Some councils will try to push through "bin taxes" before they are outlawed. The rises are revealed in a survey of council chief executives by the New Local Government Network think-tank. (Source: News of the World, Jun/10)

Daily parking fees at a park and ride has more than quadrupled for some users. The city council said the increase was made at the Pride Park site because it had become clear many people were not paying to park. The change just affects people who used the site for parking only and has meant that the cost for them has risen from 50p to £2.20, the same price as those using the bus. The city council said the charges were justified as the facility was being misused.

Previously, people using the car park but not the bus had paid 50p at a machine which gave them a ticket to display in their vehicle. Those using park and ride, which means using the 111, run by Notts and Derby, paid £2.20 on the bus as a combined fee for parking and the bus journey. This meant payments for the car park were impossible to enforce as some cars did not have tickets displayed, since their owners paid on the bus.

Now the council has added barriers to the car park which means users have to take a ticket as they enter which they can also use to get return journeys on the bus. Those who use just the car park and those who use park and ride now pay the same £2.20 fee before they leave. City council cabinet member for planning and transportation Lucy Care said the majority of park and ride spaces were intended to be used by people who used the bus. (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph, Jul/09)

Derby City Council plans to increase the cost of car parking for people staying in the city for a short amount of time, but reduce it for those staying more than three hours. It would also introduce the Sunday charge at all car parks for the first time. The idea is to encourage people to spend more time in the city, but some businesses believe it may have the opposite affect. Business owners have criticised new parking tariffs which would see visitors charged for parking on Sundays across all Derby car parks.

Shirley McCoy runs Scenta Flora, in Sadler Gate, and said, "I think there should be free on-street parking for up to half-an-hour which would encourage shoppers into the centre more than anything else. I am really surprised they are even considering putting parking up at the moment with things the way they are. I don't think many people stay in town for more than three hours anyway, so I'm not sure if lowering the cost for those people staying longer will help anyway." (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph, Oct/08)

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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