Sheffield City Council should rethink charging christmas shoppers for parking - Yorkshire Post Letters

I refer to the article in The Yorkshire Post dated, September 30, 2023, about how Sheffield city councillors are again taking a blinkered view on not having free parking on the car parks managed by the council.

Why should Sheffield city centre retailers have to suffer due to mismanagement of finances by councillors and the finance chiefs at this council?

How much did it cost Sheffield city council to protect themselves in paying for legal fees and officers time to fight the wrongful felling of healthy street trees?

The footfall may be increasing but retailers on the high street are still struggling as more shops are closing every month.

A good example is the closure of Wilko stores due partly to changes in shopping habits, which surely is another indicator that providing free parking during the run up to the vital Christmas trade can make or break retailers?

The facts that councillors had factored in the projected income for car parks at a previous committee meeting shows the inflexibility of how Sheffield city council operates.

Officers and city councillors are paid for providing local services, part of which is paid by general taxation and given back to councils by a somewhat outdated and complicated bidding system whilst part is from council tax revenues and the remaining amount from charging for services such cremations, car parking and market stalls to name just a few.

Sheffield city council please think again about charging for parking at this critical time for retailers in the great city of Sheffield.