22/01/12 - Read Paul's article on cutting parking charges

I know that good value parking is important to traders, residents and visitors to our city, especially during these tough economic times.  I want to ensure that our charges are competitive with comparable towns and cities.

Over the last few years, we’ve cut parking charges – from £20 to £6 for all day in city centre and from £2.70 to £2 for the key two hour period.  We’ve held these rates despite inflation and the rise in vat.

I’ve personally researched what other similar destinations charge.  On the whole we’re good value. Many places charge until 8 or 9 o’clock at night or even 24 hours a day, whereas most of our car parks stop at 6pm.  Most cities charge the same rate on Sundays as the rest of the week, whereas we only charge £1 for an hour and £2 all day.

I want to give visitors more choice – so in addition to two hour and four hour bands, I want to see one hour and three hour options introduced to our car parks.  I also believe that car parks slightly further out should charge less than those right in the heart of the centre – so people can choose to pay a little less if they walk slightly further.  In some circumstances, this will mean the cost of parking will halve.

There will be financial consequences from cutting parking charges.  I’d like to think that it will result in more visitors and our income will remain buoyant – but it wouldn’t be prudent to bank on that.  The experience from elsewhere is that lower charges do help to increase footfall and assist the wider economy but that revenue from parking does take a hit.   Parking income is subject to so many other factors – including the weather and people’s behaviour – that we just don’t know what the effect will be.

I hope that, as a result, people will stay longer or visit more often and some of those who don’t come here at the moment will start to do so.

Because of our success in achieving our budget savings this year, we will not have to cut services to fund the reduction and we will still be freezing the council tax for a second year.  After 12 months we will review the impact.

The changes will not affect on-street parking or privately-owned car parks – because these tariffs are set by others – so people should still check to make sure they are getting the best value.

Local people and traders have been clear in their messages to us that they want to see lower parking charges.  We have listened and acted.  I believe that taking this step to support our city centre is the right thing to do.