Council staff get £600 Liverpool city centre parking perk

Nov 8 2007 by David Bartlett, Liverpool Daily Post

ALMOST 350 council workers are receiving a £600 annual subsidy to park in Liverpool city centre.

The subsidised parking for 344 staff is costing council tax payers £206,000 a year.

The officials pay £25 a month, or £300 a year, for a space which costs the council £900 annually.

Liverpool council also has 489 “essential” car users who get completely free parking, and the authority’s 90 councillors also have free parking.

It is not known how much the free parking for essential users and councillors costs the authority.

But if the £900 a year cost were applied to all the council’s “essential” car users, plus councillors, the bill would be in excess of £500,000.

That would bring the total bill spent on free and subsidised parking to in excess of £700,000.

The details emerged as the city council’s executive board was recommended to adopt a travel plan to encourage ways to reduce the number of car journeys made by the authority’s 11,458 staff.

The plan recommends reviewing parking prices and privileges for staff, and considering the introduction of interest-free loans for buying public transport passes, or an even “greener” option – a push bike.

It also includes considering the introduction of a guaranteed ride home for car sharers, and a car share allowance for work purposes.

More stringent rules on mileage claims are also being proposed as a way of reducing the £1.3m mileage bill and improve the council’s carbon footprint. But last night the city’s only Green councillor, John Coyne, said the long overdue plan was greatly needed, and the “perverse incentive” of subsidising or giving free car parking places would did not encourage staff to leave their cars at home.

Councils are required by the Government to introduce travel plans as way to reducing carbon emissions and tackling congestion.

If the 344 car users who get subsidised parking in the city centre took alternative modes of transport to work more than 160,000 car journeys would be taken off the road each year.

The officials use council car parks at Mount Pleasant, Victoria Halls off Dale Street, and underneath Millennium House.

Last night Cllr Coyne said: “The interest for a free transport pass is tiny compared to a subsidised car parking place.

“It seems to me that the measures being considered are too weak.”

He said that councillors should be made to pay for parking and if it was essential they could claim it back on expenses.

Labour leader Joe Anderson said: “To be spending £200,000 is ridiculous. It would be cheaper to employ somebody to drive a minibus and bring them in that way.”

davidbartlett@dailypost.co.uk