Parked up
New parking charges have been introduced by Somerset Council. Will further hikes help the towns, or will the charges simply replenish the rapidly emptying coffers of the council?
Somerset Confidential® special SC 28
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Parked Up
Over the course of the summer the shiny new Somerset Council has been putting up parking charges around its patch.
We approached the council asking them for the latest on this. Specifically we asked them:
Can you confirm exactly how much parking charges have gone up?
Can you give a reason for the increase. In most cases parking charges had already been raised a couple of years ago?
Why do you believe that increasing parking charges will improve our large town centres?
The answers to questions 1 and 2 referred us to some generic material the council published back in August. The answer to question 3? Well there was no answer to question 3. More on this later.
The council has only existed since 1 April and before it did, most of the car parks were owned by the four district councils.
Some but not all. There is a fundamental friction in the running of car parks. The towns in which they are situated, would like them to be free. Free parking attracts visitors to the area either as tourists or shoppers. It helps businesses who do not have parking of their own and do not want their staff to be burdened with a daily parking charge.
There is research on this. Mary Portas was commissioned by the government to look into what could be done to revitalise our town centres. To reverse a trend where empty units, betting shops and charity shops were filling our high streets. Her work was published in December 2011.
One of her core findings was: “Local areas should implement free controlled parking schemes that work for their town centres and we should have a new parking league table.”
Time and again the issue resurfaced in her work. Later she observes: “To give the town centre a fighting chance against out-of-town developments we need to go back to basics, with business rates that work for business, decent parking and no unnecessary restrictions.”
Town Councils understand this. After all they are the the front line. They are tasked with running the towns, with trying to bring vibrancy and customers back to them. With trying to make them pleasant and inviting places for the residents who vote for them every four years.
For them the car parks they own are an asset to be sweated
On the other hand the district councils were not so invested in individual towns. For them the car parks they owned were an asset to be sweated. And sweat them they most certainly did. That policy did not appear to change when Somerset Council took over the job on the 1 April this year.