Dudley parking charges hike to come into force

Dudley Council is putting up the cost of pay and display parking across the borough.

Motorists will see the cost of parking rise from Sunday and the move will affect all council run pay and display car parks.

Those with parking season tickets will also be hit with a price rise.

Different car parks will see different increases for pay and display parking.

At Stourbridge's Ryemarket car park drivers will see charges rise from £1 an hour to £1.10 and those leaving vehicles in Penzer Street, Kingswinford, will see the price increase from 50p and hour to 60p.

A £390 12-month season ticket will go up to £460 - a rise of 15 per cent.

The move has been brought in after councillors included the increase in its budget for the current financial year approved by councillors in March.

Under the budget, the increase in charges will bring in £100,000 a year and it comes as the council needs to make £34million of cuts over the next three years.

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The move has been attacked by opposition leader, Councillor Patrick Harley who claimed the Labour-run council was 'deceiving' the public by bringing out the measures following the elections last month.

He claimed if the Conservatives were running the council an 18-month trial of free short-stay parking would be brought in and a review carried out on the price of long-stay parking.

He said: "At a time shops and businesses need our help in these towns, the council is giving another reason for shoppers to stay away by increasing charges. This is the time we want to be supporting them.

"I hear so many times people saying they want to pull up in places like Kingswinford to shop, but then don't have the change to decide to drive on and pick up what they need later at a corner shop.

"I'd want a trial of free parking for three hours. We need to take a gamble."

Councillor Harley dismissed a suggestion the council had no option to introduce the increases, claiming money was now filtering in from central Government through recent schemes, like a £600,000 initiative to tackle pot holes.

Councillor Khurshid Ahmed, the council's cabinet member for transportation, defended the increase.

He said: "Car parking charges this year have risen in line with the agreed budget strategy for 2014/15, which still leaves us as one of the cheapest places to park in the Black Country."

Last week, the council announced it was to make almost 99 redundancies over this financial year. It has also said up to half of the senior management team will lose their jobs to save more than £1million from the staffing budget.