New Council Parking Tax Hikes are a Record

Councils are imposing bigger than ever Parking Stealth Tax hikes all over the country.

Their Parking profits have soared by two thirds to a record £867 million this year – this is seen by many councillors as being the easiest way to make up for income lost from slashed central government grants.

Total ‘take’ from Parking Taxes was £1.6 billion this year but half of this goes in costs like wages and administration.

Seaside motorists in Brighton were hit the heaviest by this ‘Stealth Tax’, according to figures looked at by website click4reg, with Brighton Council’s Parking Tax profits rocketing to £23.4 million. In Southampton, net parking profits soared 62 per cent from £4.2 million to £6.8 million. Parking Tax take rose more than 20 per cent in Manchester and Bournemouth and by almost a quarter in Bath.

In many parts of the country, parking charges are set to increase again from next week.

Hampshire, Nottingham, Reading, Cambridge, Brighton and Exeter are all planning big increases. Residential parking charges will soar by as much as 230 per cent across Hampshire from April. Northampton council is trebling evening car park charges from £1 an hour to £3 on weekdays, with the cost of two hours’ parking rising from £2.40 to a flat fee of £4 for parking between three and five hours.

But in Sefton the crafty council bosses leave it till AFTER the local elections to decide how much extra the Southport motorists will have to cough up to swell the Bootle coffers. Price rises for Parking on the streets and car parks of Southport are normally decided in June. Sefton Council chiefs have been worried by the dramatic fall in value of the Bootle Strand shopping centre they bought for £32 million. While the Council’s Bootle bosses pumped another £3.15 million into the centre recently, retail is ‘tanking’ nationally.  A similar centre in Scotland has recently been auctioned off for only £310,000 having had the reseve price set at only £1.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/02/05/scottish-shopping-centre-sold-less-price-london-flat/

The RAC Foundation’s Steve Gooding says: “These large leaps in profit will astonish many motorists.”

“Local Authority parking has become big business. The turnover and profit that many councils are seeing would be the envy of many high street retailers. It is exactly these struggling firms that councils must ensure they are not killing off by pricing drivers out of towns and cities.”

As well as charging more for car parks, many councils are set to raise the cost of residential permits. Some shoppers and churchgoers will be hit by the cancelling by councils of cheaper Sunday parking in some areas. But Councils say their perennial price hikes are justified. Councillor Martin Tett, of the Local Government Association, says:

“Any income raised through on-street parking charges and parking fines is spent on running parking services and any surplus is only spent on essential transport projects, such as tackling our national roads repair backlog and other local transport projects. Councils are on the side of motorists and shoppers when setting parking policies, which aim to make sure there are spaces available for residents, high streets are kept vibrant and traffic is kept moving.”