Parking Tickets – Jonathan Brady/PA
Drivers risk seeing car parking charges double as local councils raise prices in their latest attack on motorists.
At least 16 local authorities across England have either raised their fees in the last two months or plan to do so, according to data from Your Parking Space, a comparison website.
Councils cited reasons including inflation, climate change and the invasion of Ukraine for the increases, despite warnings that they risk “strangling the high street”.
Leicester City Council will double the price for a one hour stay to £2 in most of its car parks in the new year. Norwich has raised charges by up to 66pc, which would mean paying £10 for stays over five hours.
Season tickets in Bath are proposed to rise between £50 and £200 a month, meaning drivers may have to pay out thousands of pounds extra every year. Other councils to raise costs include Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Plymouth and Winchester.
Brian Gregory, of the Alliance of British Drivers motoring group, said: “Councils are looking for any source of income that they can find and unfortunately motorists are an easy target.
“They’ll just milk motorists for as much revenue as they possibly can.”
He added: “The more difficult you make it for people to park, the more likely it is they’ll go to some out of town retail park that doesn’t charge much for parking. It’s just strangling the high street to death.”
Data from footfall tracker Springboard shows the high street has struggled to recover from the battering inflicted by lockdown, with visitor numbers down 12.4pc on pre-pandemic levels. On Black Friday, one of the busiest days of the retail calendar, footfall dropped almost 15pc compared to 2019.
Harrison Woods, of Your Parking Space, said rising parking costs had left shoppers with less to spend on the high street.
“Although price rises may seem minimal at first glance, it is another rise the public is being forced to face, especially when every penny counts right now,” he said. “The high street has been under so much pressure for so long, and the forecasts do not paint a pretty picture for the future.
“We should be supporting small businesses and enticing people back to our town centres. Unfortunately, these rises could prove to be counter-productive.”
When approached by The Telegraph, councils said rising fees were the result of financial concerns or that they would protect the environment or safeguard public services.
Cotswold District Council said it had consulted on increasing parking charges because “Putin’s war in Ukraine” had pushed up its running costs.
Keyword: Councils charge double for car parking in latest raid on drivers