Parking charges look set to be reviewed across Cheshire East as the council struggles to balance its books because of soaring inflation costs, writes Belinda Ryan.
Plans to introduce pay and display in towns such as Middlewich, Sandbach and Alsager – which currently offer free parking – were scuppered last year when the highways committee voted against the plan.
That plan would have brought in an additional £1 million in revenue.
Now a review of the council’s parking charge policy looks to be on the cards again after the financial review of this current year revealed a projected reduction of £1.3m in parking income.
Cllr Craig Browne (Ind), chair of the council’s highways and transport committee, said it was reassuring that highways had only an overall £500,000 projected variance at year end when compared to the budget set, because it was much higher for some of the council’s other committees.
He added: “We are going to have to look, as a committee going forward, at how we reduce our costs, but also how we might look to increase revenue through means other than simply just council tax.
“I fear that, amongst other things, clearly, that is going to mean re-visiting parking charges, which this committee has discussed previously.
“Looking at the financial tables it’s just so painfully obvious that a reduction in parking income is the single biggest contributor to that variance at this time.”
Cheshire East’s parking policy has been controversial from the outset.
When the council was formed in 2009, it inherited three different charging policies from the former Crewe & Nantwich, Congleton and Macclesfield borough councils.
Congleton borough did not have parking charges whereas the other two councils did.
And Cheshire East has changed very little since – other than to hike up the prices in those towns like Nantwich, Crewe, Macclesfield and Knutsford, which do pay.
Most towns which were under the former Congleton Borough Council still remain free – although charges were introduced in the town of Congleton.
No mention was made of when any review would be considered by the committee or whether it would take the form of the previous proposal, which was knocked back in September of last year.
Those proposals, which failed, would have seen all towns and villages pay the same rate on paid-for council-owned car parks.
A zonal charging scheme would also have been introduced.
How about the same charges everywhere across CE? Is it srill the case the Macclesfield parking (where coincidentally CE is based) is free?
To reduce costs perhaps they should look to reducing the number of Councillors from 82 to around 65. Also, they have increased Councillors local ward budgets to over £500k for 2023 which must have been funded, whilst I support this perhaps it could be delayed to better times. Another item that should be reviewed is the special responsibility allowances to certain members.
CEC over the last six months have made many apologises for their poor performances on many matters affecting our area. Perhaps there should be a review of Senior Officer and leading Councillors capabilities etc.
Agreed the shortfall needs to be recouped from some where, but has anybody actually factored in the fact that Crewe, once a vibrant and busy shopping town,is now all but empty,both of shops as we’ll as people.
The carparks were near always full,now they are empty ,this has been going on for years not just in Crewe but in most local towns,so asking people to pay more for parking in the few busy towns left seems ridiculous, you need atract investment so people will return,and as such be willing to pay to park.
So just charging more is at least shortsighted ,if not not down right stupid.
So my guess is stupid it is then
I have never understood why disabled parking is free, disabled people are not by definition poor people after all. Shropshire have an excellent system, they add an hour on for the disabled.
As well as charges, controlled hours need equalizing across the borough too – in Congleton it’s 9 – 5, in Nantwich 8 – 6, different, why?