Dudley car parking charges debated in parliament

Dudley MP Sonia Kumar organised a parliamentary debate on car parking in town centres following Dudley Council's decision to introduce car-park charges in October last year.

The measures, which are expected to be extended to include on-street parking meters in April, are part of a package to plug a £42 million shortfall in the authority's finances. Increased parking charges have also been announced in Wolverhampton, Walsall and Shropshire as councils struggle to cope with rising cost pressures.

But high streets and town centres minister Alex Norris said the required all revenue generated to be spent on transport or environmental projects, and suggested those requirements may need to be given closer scrutiny.

More than 11,000 people have signed a petition calling for the charges to be scrapped.

Mrs Kumar told MPs that excessive parking charges not only threatened the viability of town centres such as Dudley, they also caused hardship to students who needed to drive into town to go to college.

She said there was little point in spending money on town-centre investment projects while parking charges were pricing people out of the towns.

"They are robbing Peter so Paul can cut a ribbon," she said.

"Our high streets and leisure centres are the hearts of our communities, they provide the social and economic value for residents in Dudley and across the UK.

"In recent years we have seen too many once-thriving high streets fail."

Mrs Kumar said parking was a 'critical lifeline' for many high streets, particularly those with low incomes. Disruption caused by construction of the new tramline and bus station was adding to the pressures in Dudley, she added.

"Rising parking charges are pushing people away from Dudley town centre, and into retail parks like Merry Hill, which has free parking, and encouraging them to shop online," she said.

Mrs Kumar said local authorities across the country were using parking charges as a way to 'claw back' their way out of financial difficulties.

"Successive governments have attempted to reverse this trend, grant funding for high street improvements, Business Improvement Districts, empty-shop strategies, business rates relief, and the list goes on," she said.

"Many of these measures were only required because of mistakes in development policy over several years. Previous governments have attempted to reverse this trend, but mistakes have been made in developing policy in the last 14 years.

"We have seen council budgets eroded because councils have been forced to make impossible decisions, and on reflection, the levelling-up funding proposed by the previous government seems contradictory in hindsight."

She said many councils learned from these mistakes and have proactively avoided developments that undermine the viability of the high street. But she said internet shopping had continued to drive shoppers from historic towns, and longstanding traders in Dudley have suffered.

"The parking charges have become a cash cow," said Mrs Kumar.

"It's absolutely absurd that councils across the country have implemented it, like Dudley Council, and this is why we need to be thinking about the town centres and how they can drive footfall rather than reduce footfall."

Mrs Kumar suggested that one way of making town centres more attractive would be to offer motorists more time for the money, encouraging them to spend more in town.

"Instead of just paying for their parking, and getting a coffee, they could stay a longer time, and that would increase the footfall," she said.

She said Christine Bosworth, who had kept a craft shop in the town for the past 13 years, had described to her the problems that shopkeepers were facing.

"Christine said there's been a really wide drop in footfall in the town centre, and it's eye opening that there's a lack of accessibility to the town centre," she said, adding that the car parks were 'unusable and too expensive', while cheaper options were too far away for the elderly and disabled.

She said traders with long leases were facing mounting pressures with both a decline in the number of people visiting town centres, as well as the shopkeepers themselves struggling to find somewhere to park.

"These changes are without proper consultation which further risk eroding the vibrancy of our historic town centre," she said.

Bruno Coppola, manager of the Churchill Shopping Centre, had also voiced concerns about the impact of the charges on town centre businesses, Mrs Kumar added.

"There's a fair balance to be struck between generating a revenue through parking charges, and ensuring vibrancy and accessibility of town centres. Too many councils are not getting this balance right."

Jas Athwal, MP for Ilford South, said Redbridge Council introduced an hour's free parking, which led to increased revenue from business rates by revitalising the town.

"There is more than one way to make money, sometimes you have to be a little more imaginative and give the local people what they want by giving them free parking, and they will spend the money locally," he said.

Mrs Kumar said she had recently taken a walk around Dudley town centre and counted 35 empty shops.

Mr Norris said there may be a need to look carefully at whether councils which used parking charges to plug shortfalls in their finances were acting within the law.

"The point of local parking policies is not to be revenue raisers or cash cows," he said.

"How surpluses are spent is prescribed in legislation, requires any revenue raised from parking schemes to go back into local authority funded transport or environmental schemes, back into communities. 

"There needs to be a discerning eye to ensure that is taking place, and that communities are having a voice in that."

He said giving an hour's free parking could be very effective in getting people into town without them taking up spaces all day while they were at work.

John Slinger, MP for Rugby, said asked if the Government could do anything to counter the threat of out-of-town shopping centres which offered free parking.

Mr Norris questioned whether many of these out-of-town developments would have been granted permission had their consequences been known at the time.

"Parking is clearly a driving factor in their success, the public are telling us to some degree what they want to see," he added.

Mr Norris said many town centres were facing difficulties, and parking was an important factor in that.

He said local authorities had a responsibility to ensure the needs of businesses and communities were taken into account.

"Clearly that is not taking place here, and that's why the honourable member has had to take quite a significant step of taking this from the High Street in Dudley all the way to parliament," said Mr Norris. 

"It is hugeley important that the communities are heard in Dudley, in Kirkcaldy, in Ilford and Bolton".

Dudley Council said it had little choice but to introduce the charges in order to balance the books.