Parking is such street sorrow - update - increased and new charges proposed to help Council balance the books

This coming Monday, June 14, the Environment, Climate Emergency and Transport Committee of Wirral Council will consider a report recommending changes to the borough's parking regime and charges.

This follows a meeting in February of the Budget, Policy and Resources Committee when "a revised set of budget proposals included a further £1 million to be achieved through additional and increased parking charges and whole scale car parking review".

Monday's follow-up meeting will invite committee members to choose from a set of charging options as follows:

- Introduce charges into off-street car parks that are currently free i.e. Bromborough, Bebington, Irby, Hoylake, New Brighton. Estimated income £300k per annum (from 2022/23)

- Introduce new on-street charges into town centre areas e.g. New Brighton, West Kirby, Hoylake, Heswall, Moreton. Estimated income £200k per annum (from 2022/23)

- Introduce parking charges into coastal locations e.g. New Brighton, West Kirby, Leasowe, Hoylake. Estimated income £250k per annum (from 2022/23), will depend on scale of charges and final number of locations.

- Standardised Charges: This option is to implement a new and standardised tariff structure across all existing and any new charging locations, both on and off-street. Estimated additional income from existing parking charges £500k per annum (from 2022/23), this assumes the amended charges are implemented from July 2021. The total additional income for 2021/22 would be circa £250k - this also assumes that parking has returned to pre-COVID levels.

As far as pricing is concerned, the committee will consider financial forecasts based on tariffs being raised by 10p, 20p, 50p, £1 or £1.25.

Existing tariffs would need to be more than doubled at all current charging locations in order to potentially generate an additional £1m income if this is done in isolation from other options.

There are many things to juggle. For example, if increased parking charges put people off driving this will align with the strategy of decreasing harmful emissions; on the other hand, the report notes that they could also negatively impact local businesses trying to rebuild after the shockwave of the pandemic.

The report also points out that: "Prioritising car drivers by setting low parking charges or free car parking raises equality issues – the council does not provide free travel by bus and in some cases does not provide cycle parking.

"There are a considerable number of Wirral residents without access to a car; this may be through choice but, assuming car owners may generally have higher incomes, low charges or free parking may be seen as subsidising those who are already better off and unfairly penalising more vulnerable residents and communities."