Wirral car parking fees to rise by 10%

Mar 8 2008 by Liam Murphy, Liverpool Daily Post

PARKING charges across Wirral are expected to rise by an inflation-busting 10% next month.

Councillors are expected to approve plans to increase the cost of parking, which will raise £100,000 a year.

It is another blow to car users in the borough coming just weeks after a 10p rise on tunnel tolls was approved which will come into effect in April.

The rise is part of budget measures which have been passed by the local authority and will see council tax rise by 3.5% in 2008-9, one of the lowest increases in the UK.

But the car parking increases were last night attacked by the Wirral branch of the Federation of Small Businesses, and local Conservatives have vowed to continue to oppose the rises.

Cllr Simon Mountney said a Labour-Lib Dem pact over power-sharing on the council had defeated all Tory efforts to oppose the rise in cost at municipal car parks.

He said: “We think car parking charges are high enough and already affecting businesses in Wirral.

“It’s only anecdotal evidence, but many people are convinced that parking charges are having a negative effect.”

He said Bebington was one area in which many shopkeepers feared charges would deter customers. But the cabinet member for Streetscene, Cllr Jean Quinn, ruled out absolutely that car parking charges would be introduced there.

She said those areas did not have charges “partly because of tenuous business viability”, and added: “Car parking charges will definitely not be introduced in Bebington and New Ferry.”

A special meeting of the council’s Streetscene scrutiny committee has been called next Tuesday to review the increase after six people wrote to the authority making formal objections to the rises.

But a report by council officers has recommended the increases still be imposed, although some relief may come to businesses near Hamilton Square where road parking charges are significantly higher than nearby long-stay car parks.

Paul Molyneux, Wirral branch chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), said: “The FSB is disappointed that so quickly on the heels of a vote for an increase in tunnel tolls, Wirral’s car drivers may be made to dig deep again, this time to park.”