Cash-strapped Cheshire East Council are planning to introduce evening and Sunday parking charges across the borough.
The authority, facing a £100 million black hole in its budget, has opened a public consultation for the plan which will apply to most council-owned car parks across the borough.
The consultation will run until 9 October 2024.
It is proposing to extend charges at its car parks to 10pm (from 6pm currently) and to charge on Sundays.
The proposed Sunday tariffs would be in line with the rates for the rest of the week.
Cllr Mark Goldsmith, chair of Cheshire East Council’s highways and transport committee, said: “All our car parks need maintenance, management, and enforcement and the financial impact of this doesn’t pause after a certain time or on Sundays.
“The related costs are significant and continue to rise.
“As a council, we are facing huge financial challenges – with a forecast funding gap of £100m over the next four years.
“The proposals we are now consulting on will help to reduce some of that financial burden.
“It could potentially provide up to £2m over the next four years to support other council services, such as highways maintenance, bus services and active travel schemes.
“Therefore, we cannot ignore this option, and so are consulting on the idea.”
The consultation follows approval given by the council’s highways and transport committee in January this year.
A final decision on evening and Sunday charging will be subject to the outcome of the consultation.
CEC says all representations will be considered.
To respond to the consultation, email [email protected] and use ‘Variation 12’ as the email subject header.
A parking review for all towns across Cheshire East including Nantwich was completed in 2023.
Jesus. It’s just a consultation about standarising parking fees and now we get to hear about pulling pensions (illegal) or the structural load of new car parks, together with the usual pointing fingers at everyone else. Very grown up, bravo all well done for you constructive comments 🥳
CEC just making money to plug the 100m blackhole they have managed to create. Consultation is useless, CEC will just do what they want regardless if the consultation says NO. Shame on you CEC, why not help local businesses during the evening and Sunday and DO NOT MAKE LOCALS/VISITORS PAY FOR PARKING.
To IC Hall
Your comments are totally focused , I agree with your every word. There is another factor. As we move to electric cars , you have to ask will the new multi story take the weight. Have the Structural Engineers built this extra load into their calculations. The other key point, is electric cars when they catch fire present major problems for the fire service. There has already been one incident in the UK where a multi storey car park and all the vehicles were totally destroyed when an electric set fire. They appear far more volatile and technically far more difficult for the Fire Service to deal with.
So Cheshire East claim to be cash-strapped. Have they not just spent millions to build a New Car Park in a Gost Town. What a Folly.
In reality the creation of a local income tax would be a much equitable than the current system of Council Tax. It would be paid by all working individuals and pensioners who have a liability to pay income tax.
Many pensioner appear asset rich, however they can be in relative terms be income poor. Council Tax is tax based on the value of an asset.
Even for reasonable well off pensioners the gap grows between them and those in full time work. Percentage increases income mean very little. Five percent of nothing is zero, five on on a income of £50,000 is £2500.
It is perhaps time that government reviewed the whole system of taxation in country. A Royal Commission could complete this with the view to creating a simpler system. This could make the system equitable to all stake holders.
D Dwyer well done only four times now try living two or three miles out of town very soon we will have to walk in as the buses have now been stopped .
Time council tax was replaced by a local income tax to properly fund local councils
@Ian Hughes
In total agreement with you there. This is a National issue and reform of the public sector is required in order to deliver better value services. Its not privatisation by the back door, its making the whole sector more accountable and efficient; removing chaff and delivering better value for the tax payer. The local gov’t pension defined benefit scheme is a good place to start. That would save a considerable quantity nationally. Private companies realised this was unaffordable a long time ago and there is no reason why the private sector shouldnt follow suit.
try getting a consultation through on that though!
The question is how extensive will the Consultation Process be? Paying lip service is the normal policy adopted by Cheshire East. They will then ignore the results of the consultation. They have in reality already decided. So lets waste more money and go through a process that they will ignore. Sadly no individual Counsellors, Directors, Executive and Mangers are held responsible or accountable for the incompetence that prevails in Local Authorities. The Council Tax Payers are the cash cows who pay for diminishing services, poor direction and management. The citizens and council tax payers of Cheshire East Council are punished.
Dramatic savings could be made by management restructure, taking to disciplinary those staff who abuse sick leave. Change future pensions to money purchase arrangements. This happens in the Private Sector. There is hardly a final salary pension left in the private sector. However its ok for the tax payer to fund the public sector gold plated pensions. It is time Cheshire East Council along with many other Local Authorities entered the real word.
Cheshire East Council ignored the findings of the last consultation on parking .
When shops close in Nantwich and people head off for free parking to the Trafford Centre and other out of town shopping locations. Cheshire East will only have themselves to blame?
The question is Where does this chaos end.?
Too many people who could walk or cycle to town use a car, when there is a perfectly good bus passing on main routes to town I have lived here for 30yrs and have used the car parks only four times a year to shop for bigger items, you have to ask yourself are you car addicted
Do CEC want to destroy Nantwich Town a city centres economy and ensure more empty premises, absolutely stupidly
That’s the answer to everything, let’s just charge for what was once free and more for what we already charge.
One sure way to kill a town off,then you won’t get any business rates, very short sighted as usual for this Labour run council, they will not look at proper cost savings which may effect there salary just charge us more to make up for there inept running of the council.
We know what they will do. Will those starting to pay in October have the new times implemented at the same time? Would like to see what CEC say about that. It would help to redress all the years when no payment was required.