Dec 2011 08

Some councils double parking charges21

In last week’s bulletin sent out to all our supporters, I asked for examples of increases in parking charges across the country. Many thanks to those who got in touch. (If you would like to receive our weekly bulletin, sent out every Friday, click on this link to sign-up)

It appears that many councils are planning increases, or are considering charges on evenings and weekends. Some councils regard motorists as the gift that keeps on giving, however as we have highlighted this year, some councils – Wiltshire Council in particular – have found themselves in the eye of a storm as drivers desert town and city centres to visit and shop in other places that are cheaper to park.

Brighton and Hove Council has been in the news lately because the ruling Green administration is planning to refuse the extra cash from the government to help freeze council tax. It instead plans to increase it by 3.5%. Cllr Jason Kitcat, the finance portfolio holder, was awarded our Pin Head of the Month prize in November for this action that will increase the burden on council taxpayers. But it’s not just council tax bills that will increase. Car parking increases are on the way too.

Last week the council approved to advertise price hikes of more than 100%! The Green Party has said this is to reduce congestion, improve air quality and promote the use of sustainable transport.

Not surprisingly this has been greeted with opposition. At a time when when residents, visitors and traders can least afford it, these increases would have a devastating effect. If you wish to object to these plans, you have been allowed 21 days from 29 November (the day the meeting took place) to lodge your complaint.

There are also plans to double the cost of parking in Gravesend, and introduce charges on a Saturday. Free parking on a Saturday was one of the town’s selling points, but that seems to be lost on Parking Manager, Paul Gibbons, who told the cabinet, “We seem to be the only town in the county which offers free parking on Saturdays.”

Local trader, Bob Atkinson, said, “It is disgusting what they are doing. If you really, really want to drive everyone to Bluewater, put the prices up.” There are many more comments along the same lines.

There are planned increases in Chichester, and a petition has been set-up to oppose the introduction of charges on Sundays, and Oxford City Council has introduced charges at park and ride car parks. This must be to pay for all the non-jobs they have advertised this year!

What amazes me is the reaction from some councillors. You would think they would be acutely aware of how many shops are closing in their high streets, and how difficult it is for everyone during these hard economic times. Instead they defend increases by saying ‘our charges are favourable compared to other towns in the area’. They justify increases by saying ’50p isn’t much.’ They seem to be completely divorced from reality. Perhaps they should trade places for a week with a small independent trader. Perhaps that’s the dose of reality they need.

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  • Anonymous

    We have no right to leave our property in public places, so parking should be seen as a venal scourge rather than a human right. Motorists should only buy vehicles if they can store them off the highway. Places which seek to be destinations for vehicles (such as shops expecting deliveries) need also to have off-street parking, or not get built. Taxpayers fund the highway so that it can be used as a thoroughfare, not as a free dump for temporarily unused vehicles. This is why parking-charges and fines are (unlike taxes) a highly legitimate way of government’s raising money. Much of the country has public transport so private motoring is superfluous and selfish in those places. If motorists insist on cluttering streets with their vehicles, let them pay handsomely so that they are hopefully deterred.

    • http://profiles.google.com/sadbutmadlad Sad But Mad Lad

      You are either totally mad or totally brilliant. I can’t work out if you are serious or being sarcastic. If the former, then you must be a cyclist or someone who doesn’t drive because you have no sense of reality

      • Anonymous

        When Noam Chomsky has criticised otherwise rational people’s devotion to sport he tends to get earnest responses. It’s the same with motoring, where people can identify themselves with their cars, endowing vehicles with quasi-human rights. We have to see them for the noisy, smelly, dangerous machines they are, and try to control their owners.

        • http://twitter.com/Bertthebuilder Arthur Moe

          Yes that’s right, I’ll get my horse and cart out.

          • Anonymous

            Yet to want motoring controlled isn’t to want it abolished.

        • Gamb_1993

          You’re talking about a small percentage of people, you know that right? I mean I hardly think an OAP is ‘indulgent’ in owning a vehicle that can get them around the place with ease. Or would you have all machinery destroyed Mr Luddite?

          • Anonymous

            To argue for the control of motoring isn’t to argue for its abolition. Getting un-necessary cars off the road would free up space for public transport, emergency-vehicles and those who can’t take buses or trains.

          • Gamb_1993

            What would you class as ‘un-necessary cars’? Surely if a car is on the road it is, to some degree, necessary? If someone wants to race they go to a track, so they can’t count surely? If someone’s learning they need the real experience, so they don’t count surely?

          • Anonymous

            An un-necessary car is one on a road which has public transport on, under or parallel with it. 

          • Gamb_1993

            Not really, public transport can only go so far on a set route that’s very rigid.

          • Anonymous

            Otherwise we’d not know where to catch it. However, people can get on and off public transport at places close to their points of departure and arrival. I agree it’s not an ideal system, but that’s partly because it’s crowded-out by private cars and also because it’s run along nationalised lines with a unionised, anti-service culture.

          • Sukey49

            You obviously have no experience of public transport in rural areas – “people can get on and off at places close to their points of departure and arrival” – what a joke!

          • Paul Danon

            Just used a rural bus this afternoon. Right on time. Services do need to improve, though.

          • Gamb_1993

            The primary problem is that you’re talking about punishing people for owning a vehicle you simply dislike. I mean yes, cars are dangerous, but so are knives, bicycles, public transport is still dangerous and so-forth.

  • Finula99

    Cat got you tongue Tory Panderers Alliance…. Cameron 64K tax Payers bill for No 10 referb

    • http://twitter.com/Bertthebuilder Arthur Moe

      Now now Finula, is your spelling a result of all those years in the Labour education desert? And you surely must be aware that Dave put up some of his own cash towards the refurb, which remains in public hands after he is history.

    • Gamb_1993

      Well let’s look at it, £30,000 came from an annual grant that goes to Downing Street annually anyway and… Oh that’s right, £34,000 if from David Cameron himself. Or should we ignore the facts..?

  • Rosco

    Car owners are not heavily subsidised, they are in fact the most heavily
    taxed members of society.  Try doing your home work before you start
    pontificating about something you quite obviously know nothing about.  Only about 25%-30% of motoring taxes are spent on roads.  Motorists have paid many times over for the roads they use and  infact they heavily subsidise public transport through the excessive amount of taxation that they are forced to pay.  Fuel duty and taxation amounts for about 65%-70% of fuel costs.  And, yes we do get enraged when we read poorly researched and ill informed  green propaganda.

  • Steven K Palmer

    Brighton pin head councillor Kit Kat should take a break.There is nothing wrong with the air quality in Brighton - it’s right by the sea with a prevailing southwesterly wind  most days.The buses move around freely thanks to the bus lanes.This is just about fleecing motorists. For a tourist town to make it more expensive  for visitors to enjoy the facilities  is plain stupid.

  • Anonymous

    Councils are supposed to be reducing their costs, not increasing their revenues. When shall we start to see reductions in Council Tax ? And why do Coucils insist on destroying their town centres by increasing parking charges ?

    • Anonymous

      Oh, I do agree with tax-cuts (rather than silly Keynesian stunts), including cuts in council-tax and business-rate. One way to reduce such taxes would be to increase parking-charges. Our town-centres are destroyed and otherwise made noisy, brutal and poisonous by traffic. We need fewer cars and inter alia electric double-decker buses whose footprint per person is very low, whose noise is low, and which don’t emit fumes.